What Is REV and How This Metric Is Changing the Way We Evaluate Blockchains

REV, or Real Economic Value, is a metric that measures how much users actually pay to execute transactions on a blockchain. It accounts for both standard network fees and validator tips — often used to prioritize certain transactions. The idea behind REV is to capture the real demand for block space, reflecting the willingness of users to spend money to secure their spot on-chain.

The metric was introduced by analysts at Blockworks Research in 2024, aiming to provide a more accurate picture of economic activity within blockchain networks. According to its creators, traditional fee-based metrics often rely solely on base transaction costs — REV expands on this by also including other payment types like MEV (Miner Extractable Value) tips.

REV = Network Fees + MEV Tips

This approach offers a fresh perspective on blockchain monetization — revealing what users are genuinely willing to pay for.

The Relationship Between MEV and REV

REV is directly linked to the concept of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV). Ongoing debates around MEV and its impact on blockchain ecosystems have underscored the need for a more comprehensive revenue metric like REV.  

At its core, MEV represents the profit that can be extracted from a block by manipulating the order of transactions.

MEV comes in different forms. One of the most controversial is toxic MEV — profit earned at the expense of other network participants. A common example of this is frontrunning. In a frontrunning scenario, a trader monitors unconfirmed transactions in the mempool — for instance, on Ethereum. Upon spotting a large buy order, the trader quickly submits their own transaction with a higher gas fee, ensuring it gets processed first.

This tactic allows the trader to purchase the token at the original price and sell it at a profit once the front-run transaction has triggered a price increase. These strategies are typically executed using bots, giving technically advanced participants a clear edge over regular users. 

There’s also constructive MEV, which can be extracted without harming other participants. Examples include arbitrage between liquidity pools or DeFi liquidations. These actions help stabilize protocols and improve the overall efficiency of decentralized markets.

For a long time, MEV wasn’t factored into blockchain revenue metrics. That’s because MEV-related payments don’t typically flow through the protocol itself — they’re distributed off-chain between validators, block builders, and bots. But these payments are still a form of economic activity — no different from network fees. REV captures this by including MEV tips, offering a more complete and accurate picture of actual user demand on the network.

TEV and REV

Alongside REV, there’s another closely related metric: Total Economic Value (TEV). Like REV, it’s used to assess economic activity within a blockchain network — but with a broader scope.

TEV ncludes all monetary flows tied to network usage: base transaction fees, validator tips (including MEV), and token issuance. It represents the total amount of value generated within a blockchain over a given period.

TEV = Network Fees + MEV Tips + Token Issuance

What sets REV apart is that it excludes token issuance, focusing only on the value users actually paid out of pocket.

REV = TEV – Issuance

Both metrics are important. TEV captures the full scale of on-chain economic interaction, while REV isolates real, user-driven demand from subsidized activity. Together, they provide a more complete picture of how a blockchain is being used — and how much it’s genuinely worth to its users.

Strengths and Weaknesses of REV

Structurally, REV is similar to cash flow — it doesn’t capture nominal values, but rather tracks what users are actually spending. While this makes REV a powerful metric, it also comes with certain limitations that have sparked debate.

Key Strengths:

• Reflects real payment activity on the network — not just theoretical value.
• Helps assess demand for block space, especially during periods of high-priority transaction processing.
• Offers insight into validator and miner revenue, including tips and MEV-related earnings.

Major Limitations:

• Tied to speculative activity. REV can spike during meme coin frenzies or hype-driven trading, distorting perceptions of sustainable demand.
• Ignores failed transactions. Many MEV strategies involve bots sending dozens of failed attempts. REV only accounts for successful ones, omitting the cost of failed execution.
• Limited applicability across chains. For example, Bitcoin lacks priority fees and rarely encounters MEV, so REV mainly reflects base transaction fees.
• Can reflect inefficiency rather than demand. If a blockchain is congested or poorly optimized, users may overpay just to get included in a block. This inflates REV — but the rise stems from technical bottlenecks, not genuine demand.

Since its introduction, REV has quickly gained traction as a go-to metric — even being compared to revenue in traditional business models. But that’s precisely where the controversy lies: Is REV enough to determine a network’s true value? Or does it oversimplify the picture and fuel a metrics-driven race that isn’t always healthy for the ecosystem?

Experts are divided. Some see REV as a critical breakthrough for measuring on-chain economics. Others question its objectivity, sustainability, and applicability across different blockchain architectures.

REV as a Starting Point

Jon Charbonneau, co-founder of the venture firm DBA Crypto, views REV as a solid foundation for evaluating blockchains — comparable to revenue in the stock market. He emphasizes that no single metric can capture everything, but REV provides a clear starting point for analysis.

According to Charbonneau, it’s important to look not only at the current REV figures but also at their composition. Stable fees driven by genuine activity provide more reason for optimism than short-term spikes caused by network congestion. In his view, a protocol with consistent payment demand deserves a higher valuation than one where REV rises due to temporary hype.

REV Should Not Be Taken as Revenue

Kaito Yanai, co-founder of Spire Labs, pointed out that much of the debate around REV is based on misconceptions. He emphasized that proponents of REV do not advocate blindly maximizing this metric or evaluating blockchains solely based on it. Moreover, Yanai rejected the notion that shifting attitudes toward REV stem from Ethereum losing ground to other networks in this metric.

However, Yanai believes it’s important not to overestimate the significance of REV. He compared the metric to revenue in traditional business but stressed that it shouldn’t be used in isolation. REV doesn’t capture the whole picture, shouldn’t always be pushed higher, and is not suitable as the sole basis for evaluation. It would be a mistake to treat REV as a direct revenue equivalent or to equate blockchains with traditional companies.

Short-Term REV Does Not Equal Long-Term Value

Brendan Farmer, co-founder of Polygon, doesn’t dismiss REV but believes it is often misapplied — especially in the short term.  

He pointed out that at one point, Ethereum’s annual REV exceeded $21.6 billion, while Solana’s reached $6.6 billion. However, both figures later dropped sharply. If REV truly reflected long-term value, such spikes would correlate more strongly with price and user activity.

In his view, short-term REV is more a reflection of user sentiment, asset volatility within the ecosystem, and the immaturity of MEV markets. Chasing metric optimization at any cost could ultimately harm the network’s development.

REV at the Heart of Heated Debates

The topic of REV was also featured in a recent debate between Thomas Dunleavy of Various Capital and Austin Federa from DoubleZero. Their discussion went beyond Twitter and made its way into the Unchained podcast, where both parties laid out their views in detail.

Thomas Dunleavy is a proponent of REV and co-author of the original concept. In his view, the metric reflects the real economic demand for block space, though it has its limitations. Dunleavy considers REV a useful tool for comparing Layer 1 networks. He believes that even if fees drop to a minimum, REV will remain a valuable benchmark — especially when combined with other data.

Austin Federa takes a more critical stance toward REV. He argues that the metric only captures part of the picture and can be misleading. High REV values are sometimes driven by speculation rather than productive activity — such as competition among MEV bots. He also stresses that REV should not become the primary anchor point for investors.

Ultimately, the debate boiled down to the key question: How should network value be measured — through current cash flows or through long-term sustainability and architectural qualities? No definitive answer was reached, but the discussion highlighted the industry’s need for a more balanced and thoughtful approach to metrics.

REV might seem like a universal metric for comparing blockchains, but in practice, it’s more complex. REV values depend not only on user activity but also on network architecture, revenue distribution logic, and fee structures. To understand where REV genuinely reflects economic reality — and where it can be misleading — it’s worth examining the metric through the lens of key networks.

REV Metrics Across Major Networks

From 2021 to 2022, Ethereum consistently led the REV rankings. At its peak in November 2021, REV exceeded $1.8 billion per month. This period coincided with the DeFi and NFT boom, when network fees reached record highs.

Ethereum maintained its REV leadership until the end of 2024, but after the Dencun upgrade activated on March 13, 2024, the situation began to change. The hard fork significantly reduced network fees and impacted validator revenues.

For the first time, Solana surpassed Ethereum in REV in October 2024. The peak came in January 2025, when Solana reached a record $551.6 million, nearly tripling Ethereum’s REV, which was around $166 million at that time.

The drop in Ethereum’s REV after Dencun is not a sign of declining activity but a result of cheaper transactions and a shift of load to Layer 2. The network became more accessible, but this affected the REV metric.

Unlike Ethereum, Solana continues to handle a large share of activity at the base layer, which positively influences its REV. One reason for Solana’s growth was a sharp surge in interest in memecoins. Thousands of new tokens appeared on Solana’s network, including TRUMP, launched by the US president. This boosted trading volumes and strengthened Solana’s position in REV.

As of late May 2025, Solana remains the REV leader, with a monthly figure around $121 million, while Ethereum sits at about $49 million.

Interestingly, in some months of 2025, Ethereum lagged behind not only Solana but also Tron. In March, Tron took the lead and maintained the advantage in May.

REV in the Bitcoin network shows a fairly limited picture. MEV is possible but rare here—mainly due to the lack of complex user interactions. Most income comes from standard fees and token issuance, so REV mainly reflects basic network charges.

Some forms of MEV do occur. For example, with the emergence of the Ordinals protocol, non-standard transactions have begun to be used, which can create competition for block inclusion. While still rare, this shows that MEV is not excluded in Bitcoin.

Comparison of REV in Ethereum and Solana

In recent months, Solana has been showing higher REV than Ethereum. At first glance, this may seem like a sign of a fundamental shift in the positions of the two networks. However, to truly understand the significance, it’s important to examine how REV is actually generated within each ecosystem.

Solana’s REV saw strong growth starting in fall 2023. By early 2024, monthly values exceeded $80 million. In November 2024, REV jumped to $411 million—mainly driven by memecoins that were widely launched via pump.fun. By January 2025, the figure reached a record $551 million.

Notably, at the peak of activity in 2024, the main contributors to Solana’s REV were priority fees and Jito Tips—off-protocol tips users pay to validators for faster transaction processing.

Solana’s base fees are traditionally very low, so the sharp increase in REV indicates that users voluntarily paid more to have their transactions prioritized.

Ethereum’s activity peak occurred in the second half of 2021 and early 2022. During this period, REV consistently exceeded $1 billion per month, occasionally spiking above $2 billion. Afterward, a gradual decline began. REV fell amid the growth of Layer 2 solutions and an overall industry downturn following the FTX collapse.

In Ethereum’s REV composition, base fees constitute the largest share, followed by priority fees. Base fees represent the minimum charge the protocol burns, while priority fees are added by users to accelerate transaction processing.

MEV-Boost, a mechanism allowing validators to select the most profitable blocks, only emerged in late 2022 and remains a minor part of Ethereum’s REV. 

As network activity declines, the share of priority fees gradually decreases. Base fees again become dominant, and competition for block space lessens.

Why Ethereum’s REV Doesn’t Capture All MEV?

Solana’s REV has indeed surpassed Ethereum’s in recent months, but this can be interpreted in different ways. For Solana, the increase is tied to fierce competition for block priority. Ethereum’s situation is different — its REV composition is increasingly dominated by base fees.

But why does MEV’s contribution to Ethereum’s REV remain modest despite significant activity? The answer lies in the revenue chain architecture. Under the Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) model, some MEV value is realized off-chain and thus doesn’t show up in REV. 

Transactions are first processed by “searchers,” then assembled into blocks by “builders,” and finally passed to validators. At each step, some revenue is captured by intermediaries, which reduces the REV metric.

Moreover, some builders make direct deals with node operators and transfer payments to them outside the standard auction via “relays” — intermediaries between builders and validators. These payments aren’t recorded on-chain and therefore aren’t included in metrics like REV.

These payments are not recorded on the blockchain and, consequently, are not accounted for in metrics like REV. This distorts the overall picture, as a significant portion of the actual revenue generated by user activity remains outside public statistics.

Can REV Be Compared Across Networks and Protocols?

Comparing REV across different networks makes sense — but only when done within the proper context. Many factors influence these numbers: from network architecture and fee models to the presence of MEV and how it’s distributed. Without understanding these nuances, it’s easy to draw incorrect conclusions and either overestimate or underestimate the actual demand for block space.

When it comes to protocols, applying REV is inappropriate. REV is a network-level metric and doesn’t reflect the activity of individual applications. Protocols should be evaluated using other methods that better align with their specific role within the ecosystem.

REV is not a one-size-fits-all metric — but it marks an important step toward a more accurate measurement of blockchain demand. Its emergence reflects the industry’s effort to account for MEV and bring greater transparency to on-chain economic activity. However, the reality is more complex.

REV captures only part of the picture. Its structure is heavily influenced by network architecture, revenue distribution mechanisms, and value transfer methods. In Ethereum, for example, some MEV flows don’t register in REV. And in Bitcoin, the metric becomes largely irrelevant.

For REV to be truly useful, it must be considered alongside other indicators. Only by analyzing it in context can we understand the sources of demand, assess their sustainability, and see how value is distributed across the network.