Video breakdown

Phil walks through the blockchain fee review.

Chain fees · Solana · Tron · Ethereum · BSC · Base

Blockchain fee review: Solana leads today, but BSC's monthly ranking is stronger

Pick a time window and you pick a ranking. BSC trails Ethereum on today's fees by nearly half, yet beats it over thirty days. Base's fees halved last week. Fees tell you what users spent on execution, not why, and not who profits.

Phil · DashMode6 Oct 20267 min readSnapshot 6 Oct 2026

DefiLlama chain fees · one rankings page Ranking changes by window

Chain	24h	7d	30d
Solana	$970k	$7.19M	$27.74M
Tron	$863k	$5.71M	$24.00M
Ethereum	$730k	$4.19M	$17.70M
BSC	$390k	$4.20M	$20.79M
Base	$122k	$596k	$4.52M

TL;DR

Solana leads on every window: $970k today, $27.7M over 30 days. The rest of the order depends on the window.
BSC's daily fees are just 53% of Ethereum's, but its 30-day fees are 17.5% higher. Today BSC sits 44% below its monthly average; Ethereum 24% above.
Base's last week averaged about half its daily fees from the rest of the month, though its latest day bounced 43% above the weekly average.
Higher fees can mean more use, pricier block space, new fee rules or costlier operations. They aren't profit and aren't token-holder income.

Dashboard 01

Fees at a glance

DefiLlama chain fees · 6 Oct 2026 · baselines derived

Solana, 30d

$27.7M#1 all windows

29% of the five chains

Tron, 30d

$24.0M

#2 in every window

BSC vs Ethereum, 24h

53%Behind

$390k vs $730k

BSC vs Ethereum, 30d

+17.5%Ahead

$20.8M vs $17.7M

BSC today vs 30d average

−43.7%

Slowing in every window

Ethereum today vs 30d average

+23.7%

Steady month, busy day

Base last week vs rest of month

≈ −50%

Per-day average · derived

Five chains, 30d

$94.8M

$3.08M in the last 24h

01 / Windows

The ranking depends on which window you pick

Solana and Tron hold first and second place in all three windows. Below them, the order shifts. Over the last day Ethereum is third with $730k and BSC fourth with $390k, about 53% of Ethereum. Over seven days they're nearly level ($4.20M vs $4.19M). Over thirty days BSC is clearly ahead, $20.8M against $17.7M, about 17.5% higher.

A review based only on the current day would miss that reversal. It also shows why every fee ranking should state its window.

Dashboard 02

Fees by chain, three windows

DefiLlama chain fees · USD

Last 24 hours

Last 7 days

Last 30 days

Dashboard 03

Rank by window

1 = highest fees · hover for values

SolanaTronEthereumBSCBase

BSC and Ethereum swap places between the 24-hour and 7-day windows; at 7 days they are separated by about $10k.

02 / Baselines

Today against each chain's own normal

Thirty-day fees divided by thirty give an average day. Against that baseline, BSC's latest day is about 43.7% lower, while Ethereum's is about 23.7% higher. Compared with the weekly average, BSC is still 35% down and Ethereum 22% up.

Splitting the month into the last 7 days and the 23 before shows direction. Solana's last week ran about 15% above the rest of the month. BSC's ran about 17% below. Base's last week averaged roughly half its daily fees from earlier in the month, even though its latest day bounced 43% above the weekly average. These describe recent activity against each chain's own baseline; they don't explain the demand shift.

Dashboard 04

Latest day vs average day

Weekly average = 7d ÷ 7 · monthly average = 30d ÷ 30 · derived

vs 7-day averagevs 30-day average

Dashboard 05

Last week vs the rest of the month

Average daily fees · last 7 days vs the 23 days before · derived as (30d − 7d) ÷ 23

Earlier 23 daysLast 7 days

Change in average daily fees

Last week's share of the month

Steady pace = 7 ÷ 30 ≈ 23%.

Dashboard 06

Share of fees, today vs the month

Five-chain totals: $3.08M (24h) · $94.75M (30d) · Base, far right: 4.0% and 4.8%

03 / Interpretation

Higher fees can mean four different things

Fees rise when more people use a chain, but also when block space gets scarcer and pricier, when fee rules change, or when activity shifts toward expensive operations. A chain serving many cheap interactions can collect less than one serving fewer costly transactions.

Clarity comes from separating transaction count from the average fee paid, then looking at the mix of activity. Dollar fees also move with the price of the token used to pay them. And fees are user spending: not audited profit, and not automatically income for token holders. Application fees are a separate layer on top.

Dashboard 07

Why fees move

Drivers a fee change can't distinguish on its own

More usage

More transactions at similar prices.

Check: tx count

Scarcer block space

Same activity, higher price per unit.

Check: avg fee

Fee-rule changes

Protocol upgrades altering pricing.

Check: changelog

Costlier operations

Mix shifts to heavier contract calls.

Check: tx mix

Dashboard 08

Same fees, different stories

Illustrative · two hypothetical chains each collecting $1M a day

Chain A: 100M transactions at $0.01. Chain B: 1M transactions at $1.00. Identical fee totals, very different networks. Bars use log scales.

Dashboard 09

What fees are, and what they aren't

Layers of economic activity

Chain fees

What users paid the network for execution. This review.

● Measured

Application fees

What users paid apps on top: swap fees, lending spreads.

◐ Separate layer

Operating profit

Fees minus validator and infrastructure costs; not audited here.

✕ Not measured

Token-holder income

Only if the chain routes fees to holders; not automatic.

✕ Not measured

Dashboard 10

Evidence scorecard

What the snapshot supports today

Solana collects the most fees in every window

$970k (24h) to $27.7M (30d).

● Established

BSC beats Ethereum over 30 days, not today

+17.5% monthly; 53% daily.

● Established

BSC is slowing; Base's fees halved last week

Derived from window differences.

◐ Derived

Higher fees mean more users

Could be price, rules or mix.

✕ Not established

Fees are profit or holder income

User spending only.

✕ Not supported

Fee per transaction by chain

Transaction coverage not harmonised; deliberately not calculated.

✕ Not measured

04 / DashMode's assessment

Always state the window, and ask what moved

Solana leads fee collection on every window. Below it, the ranking depends on whether you look at a day, a week or a month, and BSC and Ethereum trade places. Base's fees dropped sharply over the last week. None of this, on its own, says whether usage, pricing or fee rules drove the change.

The next step is to split fees into transaction count and average fee on harmonised data, then look at the activity mix and the token price behind the dollar figures.

Dashboard 11

DashMode's fee-review method

For a recurring fee report

One page, several windows24h, 7d and 30d from the same source.

Own baselinesEach chain against its own average day.

Count × priceHarmonised transaction counts and average fee paid.

Strip token priceFees in native units beside dollars.

Separate layersChain, application and holder flows kept apart.

Sources

Chain fees DefiLlama

Methodology and limits. Uses one DefiLlama chain-fee rankings page retrieved on 6 Oct 2026. Baselines divide 30-day fees by 30 and 7-day fees by 7; the "earlier 23 days" average is (30d − 7d) ÷ 23 and assumes aligned windows. Fees are user spending, not audited operating profit or automatic token-holder income; application charges are a separate layer. No fee-per-transaction estimate is presented because cross-page transaction coverage has not been harmonised. Dashboard 08 is illustrative. Exact upstream cutoffs were unavailable. Dated research, not a live feed. Not investment advice.