Exploring the User Value of Seven Major Public Chains: Ethereum Single Address Holds $3,500, No Whales on TON?

Author: Frank, PANews

Since the mini-games within the Telegram ecosystem have exploded in popularity, the number of users in the crypto space has surged. Previously prominent projects seem insignificant compared to the tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, of users attracted by TG mini-games. However, we seem to have overlooked a crucial issue: the discussion about user value. Ethereum has only 400,000 to 500,000 daily active users, yet it remains the second-largest public chain by market capitalization, while TON, with daily active users easily exceeding 2 million, ranks around tenth place. Is this a misestimation of market value, or is there indeed a significant gap in user value among these public chains? PANews has conducted an analysis of the real user value across various public chains in an attempt to unravel the mystery of public chain user value.

The main research methods are as follows, aimed at more accurately reflecting user value across different public chains. PANews calculated the values of several popular tokens on chains such as Solana, Ethereum, TON, Sui, Base, and BSC. Since there have been no ready-made indicators to display public chain user value, we derived an average value by dividing the market capitalization of the tokens by the number of holders. This average value represents the average holding value per address for these popular tokens. Additionally, to get closer to the real situation, we excluded addresses belonging to exchanges, team holdings, and locked addresses from the calculations. Of course, this method may not be rigorous, as averages do not represent the majority, and market capitalization can include inflated values, but it provides significant reference for ranking user value among public chains.

Furthermore, PANews also calculated the average transaction size by dividing the daily transaction volume by the number of daily transactions for each public chain, which can also reflect the user value situation on the chain to some extent.

Ethereum: Average Address Holds $3,516, Average Transaction Reaches $1,160, A Hub for Large Holders

Ethereum's various metrics remain at the forefront. For our analysis on Ethereum, we selected several tokens such as USDT, USDC, SHIB, UNI, and PEPE, examining their average values after excluding large holder addresses. The average holding amount for these tokens reached around $3,500, significantly higher than other public chains, approximately six times that of Solana, while the market capitalization difference between the two is about five times. From this perspective, Solana's market capitalization seems somewhat overestimated. In terms of transaction size, Ethereum's average transaction size reached $1,160, which is also far higher than other public chains, indicating that Ethereum remains the top choice for large holders.

Solana: Average Address Holds $635, Average Transaction $17, Still Focused on Meme Coins

Solana has now become one of the most representative performance public chains in the industry, and its various metrics can generally serve as a standard for comparison. However, during the research process, PANews found that the governance token SOL could not be tracked for its number of holders anywhere. Therefore, we could only use some other representative tokens on the Solana chain as data sources, such as JUP, USDC, USDT, BOME, and Bonk.

After calculations, it can be seen that by directly dividing the market capitalization of these tokens by the number of holding addresses, the average holding value per address is approximately $2,240, which is second only to Ethereum among public chains. However, after excluding addresses for locked tokens and exchanges, the average holding amount drops to around $635.

Additionally, comparing the holding values of these tokens shows that the average amount held by users of MEME tokens is significantly higher than that of stablecoin accounts. This phenomenon is reversed in Ethereum, perhaps indicating that Ethereum users may prefer DeFi, such as earning yields through stablecoins, while Solana users lean more towards meme coins. According to Hello Moon data, over 86 million user wallets held 0 SOL in the past month, about 15.5 million users held less than 1 SOL, and around 1.5 million users held less than 10 SOL.

On October 8, Solana's entire chain generated approximately 250 million transactions, of which about 26.2% were non-voting transactions. The total transaction volume for that day was approximately $1.15 billion, with an average transaction size of $17.4. This transaction size appears to be primarily driven by MEME token transactions.

Arbitrum: Average Address Holds $487, Average Transaction Reaches $282, The L2 with the Most Ethereum Gene Inheritance

Arbitrum is currently one of the best-performing networks among Ethereum L2s. From the data results, it seems that Arbitrum indeed accommodates many high-value users from Ethereum. After excluding exchanges and other large holders, the average holding amount on Arbitrum still reaches $487, only lower than Ethereum and Solana. However, taking USDC as an example, half of the USDC on Arbitrum is held in Hyperliquid, and other tokens also have a high proportion of large holders. Additionally, the tokens with high market capitalization on Arbitrum are primarily stablecoins or staking-type tokens like BTC and ETH, which is similar to the holding characteristics of Ethereum users. From this perspective, Arbitrum can be considered the L2 that inherits the most from Ethereum. The average transaction size on Arbitrum is $282, only lower than Ethereum.

Sui: Average Address Holds $271, Average Transaction $11.4, Is a New Force Catching Up with Solana?

Recently, there has been much discussion about Sui becoming the strongest competitor to Solana, and on-chain data indeed shows that Sui has performed quite well. On Sui, we selected several high-market-cap tokens such as SUI, wUSDC, USDT, CETUS, and SCA for comparison. The tokens on Sui show a significantly higher degree of dispersion, so wUSDC and USDT have almost no high-proportion exclusion objects. Overall, the average holding amount for these tokens on Sui is $271, which is higher than TON and about double that of Solana.

However, in terms of transaction size, data from October 8 shows that Sui's average transaction size is $1.8, the lowest among public chains. This figure may stem from an abnormal surge in transaction numbers on Sui recently, exceeding 100 million transactions. It is still unclear whether this is due to bots inflating the numbers or if another spam-like mining program has emerged. If calculated based on data from October 3, the average transaction size is approximately $11.47, slightly lower than Solana but far higher than TON (this figure may be closer to Sui's daily level).

BSC: Average Address Holds $167, Average Transaction $237, User Profile Similar to Ethereum

In contrast, BSC's data level is moderate. Unlike Solana and Sui, BSC's characteristics are more akin to Ethereum. On BSC, we selected five tokens for analysis: BETH, BSC-USD, WBNB, USDC, and DOGE. The average holding amount per address is approximately $167 (after excluding exchanges, locked tokens, and other large holders), while the average transaction size on BSC is more impressive, at around $237, second only to Ethereum and higher than other public chains.

TON: Average Address Holds $106, Average Transaction $3.3, No Funds from the "Freebie" Crowd

Driven by popular mini-games like Notcoin, Hamster Kombat, and DOGS, TON has become one of the most active public chains today. However, the real popularity of TON and its market recognition seem to remain in a state of ambiguity. According to Cointelegraph, on October 7, the Web3 anti-fraud solution Scam Sniffer shared a screenshot announcing the closure of hacker software based on TON. The hacker stated that there were not enough crypto whales in the community, which was detrimental to their business.

On TON, we analyzed several tokens including DOGS, NOT, TON, USDT, HMSTR, and CATI. The results show that the average amount per address is only $106, placing it at the bottom among the analyzed public chains, while the transaction size on TON is just $3.38, also at a low level. Perhaps from this perspective, the TON ecosystem currently remains in a state of having excitement without substantial funds.

Base: Average Address Holds $96, Average Transaction Reaches $138, Funds Mainly Held in Exchanges and Institutions

The average holding value for users on Base is approximately $96, while this figure was $663 before excluding large holders. This change indicates that, as a Layer 2 network relying on Coinbase, most funds on the Base chain are primarily held in exchanges and institutions. Retail investors on Base have significantly smaller fund sizes. Additionally, the average transaction size on Base is around $138, which also represents a high-value trading level.

In summary, by comparing user value across different chains, we can identify the characteristic attributes of each chain. For instance, emerging chains like Solana and Sui, which have high MEME popularity, tend to have smaller transaction sizes and lower individual address holdings, but a high number of transactions. In contrast, established public chains and L2s, represented by Ethereum, are more favored by large holders, but they clearly prefer asset staking and other investment forms. In this context, the performance of the TON ecosystem appears somewhat disconnected from the popularity of Telegram games. However, this initial user acquisition model is just beginning, and whether it can successfully break through remains to be seen.