Bitwise Q3 2026 Staking Report: Chain Activity Increases, Revenue Declines, Institutional Adoption Accelerates

ChainCatcher report, according to Bitwise’s Q3 2026 Staking Report, Q2 2026 exhibited a divergent landscape characterized by rising on-chain activity alongside declining fee revenues, primarily driven by protocols proactively reducing block space costs. Key chain metrics: Ethereum’s active staking volume reached a record high of 40.2 million ETH (33% of total supply), while network revenue fell 51% year-over-year to $64 million, though it rebounded环比 in ETH terms. Solana’s Q2 Real Economic Value (REV) dropped to $51 million, a sharp decline from its Q1 2025 peak of $812 million, yet non-voting transaction volume reached 9.8 billion, demonstrating resilient on-chain activity. Hyperliquid reported total protocol revenue of $174.8 million in Q2, with perpetual contract trading volume hitting $652 billion; the share of non-crypto assets (commodities, indices, etc.) rose to 32%. Avalanche C-chain transaction volume surged approximately fourfold year-over-year to 236 million transactions, but network revenue plummeted to just $330,000 due to drastically reduced fees. NEAR experienced a 75% drop in Q2 on-chain transactions to 77.7 million, following a collapse in Kai-Ching app activity; however, the Intents execution layer generated fees roughly 68 times higher than the base chain. Institutional adoption: BlackRock launched the Ethereum staking ETF (ETHB); Coinbase and Circle each staked 500,000 HYPE tokens; Bitwise, 21Shares, and Grayscale subsequently launched HYPE spot ETFs. Additionally, Tempo, a stablecoin payment chain incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, processed $386 million in transfers during its first quarter, with the global payroll platform Deel using the chain to disburse approximately $30 million to 7,200 contractors.