The BNB Chain demonstrated significant resilience in the first quarter of 2025, posting robust growth in network revenue and user activity even as its native token’s market capitalization decreased. Recent analysis reveals the crypto network’s earnings surged impressively despite broader market headwinds.
Network revenue climbed a remarkable 58.1% compared to the previous quarter, reaching $70.8 million. Surprisingly, the main driver was a massive 122.6% increase in peer-to-peer transaction fees, which constituted 17.4% of total revenue, overtaking contributions from DeFi protocols. Decentralized finance applications saw a more modest 7.6% QoQ revenue growth (8.4% total share), while stablecoin activity revenue grew 23.4% but represented a smaller slice at 5.2%.
Despite this strong financial performance, BNB’s market cap fell by 14.8% during Q1, settling at $86.2 billion. Nevertheless, it held its position as the fourth-largest crypto asset excluding stablecoins. On the activity front, BNB Smart Chain experienced notable gains: average daily transactions rose 20.9% to 4.9 million, and daily active addresses increased by 26.4% to 1.2 million.
Stablecoins remained a core component, accounting for around 45% of daily transactions (1.2 million). Direct wallet-to-wallet transfers also saw significant growth, jumping 50.9% to 835,000 daily transactions. The total value locked (TVL) within the BNB Smart Chain ecosystem increased by 14.7% when measured in BNB.
Decentralized exchange (DEX) volume expanded significantly, up 79.3% QoQ, averaging $2.3 billion in daily trades. PancakeSwap continued its dominance, facilitating over 90% of this activity. Q1 also saw the implementation of the Pascal hard fork, introducing important technical enhancements like EIP-7702 smart contract wallets and batch transaction capabilities.
Furthermore, the launch of the BNB Good Will Alliance in March proved effective, contributing to a substantial reduction in sandwich attacks by over 90% through coordinated efforts against MEV exploitation.