Analysis of Mainstream Public Chain Data Performance in the Last Three Months

In the past three months, the cryptocurrency market has shown a clear rebound trend. The performance of mainstream public chains has become the focus of market attention, with Ethereum returning to its peak under the influence of multiple favorable factors. At the same time, the prices of some emerging public chains such as Solana, Sui, and Hyperliquid have also seen significant increases. From the market trends, it seems that we are entering a new altcoin season. However, behind the price increases, what is the actual development status of these public chains?

This article reviews the core indicators of eight major public chains with relatively large TVL and high popularity over the past three months, including price, TVL, capital flow, on-chain activity, and ecosystem progress, aiming to outline the true landscape of the current public chain competition. The data collection period is from April 20 to July 20.

Ethereum: The King Returns Driven by Capital

Ethereum has recently seen significant improvements across various metrics, aligning closely with its price performance. Over the past three months, Ethereum's price has risen from $1600 to a peak of over $3800, an increase of more than 130%. Accompanying the price surge, the total value locked (TVL) in the Ethereum ecosystem has grown by 61.34% during the same period, with a net influx of on-chain funds reaching $8.3 billion in the last three months, making it once again the public chain with the largest inflow of funds.

However, the growth of TVL is mainly attributed to the rise in the price of ETH tokens. In terms of the number of ETH, the holdings of ETH in the Ethereum ecosystem are on a downward trend, decreasing from 28.39 million in April to about 22.28 million now, a decrease of 21%.

The number of active addresses and transaction volume on the chain has grown by 11.94% and 16% respectively over the past three months, showing a relatively moderate increase. In addition, Ethereum spot ETFs have seen significant growth during this period, with a net increase of about $5 billion. Several listed companies have followed suit by adopting Ethereum as a reserve asset, providing more buying pressure and a positive market sentiment. Overall, capital inflow may be the main reason for the substantial rise in Ethereum's price.

Solana: The Challenge of Market Capitalization Rebound but Declining Activity

The price of SOL has recently surged significantly, rebounding from a low of 139 dollars to a high of 189 dollars. However, several metrics within the Solana ecosystem have not seen a noticeable increase; instead, they are on a downward trend. Over the past three months, there has been a net outflow of approximately 112 million dollars in on-chain funds, and the number of daily active addresses has decreased by 14%. The issuance of stablecoins has also slightly decreased, dropping by about 1.5 billion dollars.

The TVL amount increased during this period, rising from 7.3 billion to 9.237 billion USD. In terms of performance within the ecosystem, Pump.fun remains the platform with the highest trading volume, contributing a trading volume of 234 billion USD in the past month. Notably, OKX DEX entered the top ten with a monthly trading volume of 4.6 billion USD, which was unexpected.

Regarding MEME coins, the daily new token issuance on Solana is about 40,000 to 50,000, which is a significant decrease from the 90,000 to 100,000 level in January of this year, but it remains relatively stable overall.

Currently, the staking rate of Solana is about 66%, but the number of validators is on a downward trend, which means that large validators are gradually replacing small validators.

BSC: Alpha Activities Drive On-Chain Recovery

The data performance of BSC stands in stark contrast to Solana. The price of BNB has remained relatively stable over the past three months, only rebounding by nearly 30%. However, on-chain metrics such as daily active users, transaction volume, and stablecoin issuance have all seen significant growth. The number of daily active addresses increased from 25.2 million to 44 million, a rise of 74.6%; daily transaction volume grew from 7.85 million to 16.82 million, an increase of about 114%; and stablecoin issuance rose from 7.12 billion to 11 billion, a growth of 55%. This significant improvement in data may be attributed to the impetus from Alpha activities.

Despite a significant increase in on-chain activity, BSC still experienced a net outflow of $950 million in funds over the past three months. How to convert the active users attracted by activities into long-term capital retention may be a key issue that BSC needs to address in the future.

Base: High-speed expansion to channel funds into Ethereum

Base's on-chain data performance is impressive, with TVL increasing from 2.4 billion to 4 billion in three months, a growth of 63%. The number of daily active addresses rose from 15.6 million to 33.6 million, an increase of 115%, and the number of daily transactions grew by 23%. Overall, all on-chain indicators for Base have shown significant improvement, but there has been a substantial outflow of funds, with a net outflow of 5.6 billion over three months, making it the public chain with the highest net outflow of funds. Data shows that these funds ultimately flowed to Ethereum, making Base the largest source of funds for the Ethereum mainnet recently.

In addition, Base has launched Flashblocks technology, reducing block generation time from 2 seconds to 200 milliseconds, making it the fastest EVM-compatible chain currently. At the same time, the Base App has been introduced as a one-stop social and trading platform to further promote ecosystem development.

Arbitrum: The Power-up Period of the Steady Runner-up in L2

The overall data changes for Arbitrum are minimal, with a TVL increase of 34% and a transaction count increase of 22%. The daily active address count has remained stable at 4.6 million over the past three months. However, the ARB price has recently rebounded by 66%, showing strong performance among major public chains. This may be attributed to the upward effect of Ethereum's price increase. Despite the minimal data changes, Arbitrum firmly holds the second position among Ethereum L2s.

Sui: TVL and Coin Price Soar Together

The price of SUI has recently surged significantly, rising from $2.15 to a peak of $4.24, an increase of 97%, nearly doubling. There are some underlying data supporting this explosive growth. Mainly, the TVL data has increased from $1.2 billion in April to $2.2 billion, an increase of over 84%. In addition, the issuance of stablecoins has surpassed $1 billion. In terms of daily active addresses, there was a significant fluctuation from May to June, dropping from 1.5 million to 400,000, and then rebounding to around 1 million in early July, but still not returning to the previous peak level.

Hyperliquid: Strong Rebound After the Crisis of Trust

Hyperliquid is one of the best-performing public chains in the past three months, with its token price soaring from $18 to $49.9, and its market capitalization exceeding $15 billion, ranking thirteenth among all tokens.

In terms of on-chain data, the TVL increased from $640 million to $1.943 billion, a growth of 202%. The issuance of stablecoins rose from $2.1 billion to $4.9 billion, quickly becoming the fifth largest public chain by issuance. After the previous decentralized trust crisis, Hyperliquid's treasury HLP yield has recently reached a new high, surpassing $68 million. Since July, the daily number of new users has again exceeded 3,000.

Aptos: The Sleeper in Data Slump

Compared to other public chains, Aptos has shown relatively flat performance in both on-chain data and price. The price has only increased by 10% in three months, while several key indicators such as TVL, capital inflow, and daily active addresses have all seen negative growth. The biggest change is a 34% increase in daily transaction volume and an increase of $300 million in stablecoin issuance. Compared to Sui, which also uses the MOVE language, Aptos has fallen behind on multiple data dimensions.

Overall, there is a certain gap between the recent performance of public chain data and the increase in token prices. Although networks like Sui, Hyperliquid, and Base have shown significant improvement in data driven by the market, the extent of the improvement is lower than the increase in token prices. This round of recovery seems to be at a stage where capital is ahead of the ecosystem; whether token prices can translate into substantial prosperity for the ecosystems of various public chains and drive the development of practical applications such as DeFi and blockchain games may be a key factor in whether this altcoin season can continue. Therefore, although there is currently a certain divergence between prices and on-chain data, these fundamental data points may become decisive factors for prices in subsequent developments.