Bitwise releases Q3 2026 staking report: Activity on various main chains rises but revenue generally declines, institutional entry becomes a core theme
According to the Bitwise "Q3 2026 Staking Report," Q2 2026 presents a divergent pattern of "increased on-chain activity and decreased fee revenue," with the core driving factor being various protocols actively reducing block space costs.In terms of core data across chains, Ethereum's active staking volume reached a historic high of 40.2 million ETH (accounting for 33% of the total supply), while network revenue decreased by 51% year-on-year to $64 million, although it rebounded in ETH terms quarter-on-quarter; Solana's Q2 Real Economic Value (REV) dropped to $51 million, significantly down from the peak of $812 million in Q1 2025, but non-voting transaction volume reached 9.8 billion, maintaining resilience in on-chain activity; Hyperliquid's Q2 total protocol revenue was $174.8 million, with perpetual contract trading volume reaching $65.2 billion, and the proportion of non-crypto assets (commodities, stock indices, etc.) rose to 32%; Avalanche C chain's transaction volume grew approximately fourfold year-on-year to 236 million transactions, but network revenue plummeted due to a significant drop in fees, leaving only $330,000; NEAR saw a dramatic 75% drop in on-chain transaction volume to 77.7 million transactions due to the collapse of Kai-Ching application activity, but the Intents execution layer generated fees approximately 68 times that of the base chain.In terms of institutional adoption, BlackRock launched an Ethereum staking ETF (ETHB), Coinbase and Circle each staked 500,000 HYPE, and Bitwise, 21Shares, and Grayscale successively launched HYPE spot ETFs. Additionally, the stablecoin payment chain Tempo, incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, processed $386 million in transfers in its first quarter, while the global payroll platform Deel distributed approximately $30 million to 7,200 contractors through this chain.