BNB Chain posts strong Q1 performance despite 15% market cap dip: Messari

BNB Chain delivered a standout Q1 performance in revenue and on-chain metrics, even as its market cap dipped almost 15%.

According to a new report by Messari, BNB Chain posted strong revenue performance in Q1 2025, with network earnings jumping 58.1% quarter-over-quarter to $70.8 million. The surge was largely driven by a 122.6% increase in wallet-to-wallet transaction fees, accounting for 17.4% of total revenue, surpassing DeFi. The DeFi category contributed a modest 8.4% of total revenue, growing 7.6% QoQ, while stablecoin-related activities made up 5.2% of revenue, increasing 23.4% QoQ, but with a reduced revenue share of 5.2%.

Despite the impressive revenue growth, BNB’s market cap declined by 14.8% over the quarter, ending at $86.2 billion. Still, BNB maintained its rank as the fourth-largest non-stablecoin crypto asset by market cap.

As far as on-chain activity is concerned, BNB Smart Chain saw average daily transactions climb 20.9% QoQ to 4.9 million, while daily active addresses jumped 26.4% to 1.2 million. Stablecoins continued to dominate, making up roughly 45% of all transactions at 1.2 million per day, and wallet-to-wallet transfers surged 50.9% to 835,000 daily. Total value locked in BNB Smart Chain rose 14.7% in BNB terms.

DEX volume surged 79.3% QoQ, averaging $2.3 billion in daily trading, with PancakeSwap accounting for over 90% of the chain’s total DEX activity.

Messari also noted the successful rollout of the Pascal hard fork, which introduced key technical upgrades such as EIP-7702 smart contract wallets, batch transaction support, and improved cryptography. Additionally, the BNB Good Will Alliance, launched in March, helped slash sandwich attacks by more than 90% through coordinated MEV protection efforts.