Recent industry data points to a structural redistribution of income across the Web3 stack, with value increasingly accruing at the application layer—dApps, wallets, and DeFi protocols—rather than primarily at the base-layer blockchain level. This matters because application-layer revenue concentration changes builder incentives, reshapes compliance priorities, and reframes investor return profiles.
In Q1 2025, dApps generated about $1.8 billion in fee revenue, exceeding the roughly $1.50 billion captured by underlying blockchains over the same period. The trend continued in later snapshots: Solana’s dApps led revenue in November 2025 at roughly $3.79 million per day and captured nearly half of that month’s total dApp DeFi revenue, while Ethereum’s application-layer activity contributed over $1 billion in dApp revenue in Q1 2025.
Hard to ignore the relative shift in DeFi 👀
Only 1.5yrs ago, DeFi apps generated ~2X the fee revenue of blockchains. Today it’s closer to 5X. (see chart)
While I am a believer that blockchain's network effects will always command a premium, it makes sense that more value than… pic.twitter.com/RbgSpkqGp8
— Jamie Coutts CMT (@Jamie1Coutts) January 15, 2026
DeFi as the primary engine of value capture
DeFi sits at the center of this shift, with the sector valued at $51.22 billion in 2025 and Ethereum reporting $48.2 billion in DeFi TVL in that year. Within that activity, large protocols and centralized issuers concentrated meaningful economics: Aave v3 reported $42.47 billion in TVL and generated about $96 million in fees for protocol treasuries in 2025, while Tether and Circle together earned more than $16 billion in the cited period.
This concentration is changing how the ecosystem allocates attention and capital. The economic “gravity” is increasingly where users interact—inside applications—rather than at the settlement layer alone, which pushes teams to optimize for distribution, product surfaces, and monetization mechanics that live above the chain.
Why wallets and scaling are accelerating the shift
Wallets are becoming active platforms as UX and account abstraction reduce onboarding friction. Wallet interfaces now bundle swaps, staking, NFT management, and DeFi access into unified experiences, turning wallets into value-capture points rather than passive custody utilities. In parallel, connectivity layers like WalletConnect are positioned as core plumbing, as bridges and wallet connection infrastructure move billions in value between wallets, apps, and chains annually.
At the same time, scalability and cross-chain tooling are compounding the application advantage. Layer 2s, bridges, and multi-chain protocols have made app execution more economical and composable, increasing transaction volume at the point of interaction while reducing latency and costs. The net result is a reinforcing loop: more activity at the application layer tends to generate more fees and treasury inflows at the application layer.
Regulatory clarity and tokenized real-world assets also act as catalysts for institutional interest. As frameworks mature, protocol-style revenue models—fees, tokenized RWAs, and licensing—become more investible, shifting allocations toward projects that can demonstrate sustainable cash flows and operational readiness.
That shift raises the bar on governance and controls. KYC/AML, licensing posture, and custody standards become more central as application-layer firms intermediate payments and on-chain financial services, and as institutional participants evaluate the durability and compliance profile of those revenues.
Looking ahead, 2026 fee projections and the pace of RWA tokenization will be the practical tests of whether Web3 continues to evolve into a services-driven economy rather than a pure infrastructure thesis. If fees scale as projected and DeFi continues to channel real-world revenue, the sector’s value creation increasingly resembles application-led financial services, with infrastructure serving as the enabling substrate.