TRON reaches peak transactions in October, boosting fee generation

The TRON network showed a jump in activity this October, leading to new records on daily transactions. On-chain data show October’s traffic was 8.15% higher than the previous month, as interest in using TRON increased. 

TRON (TRX) expanded its growth in October, reaching a yearly peak for daily transactions. The network expanded on overall renewed interest in crypto, despite lagging in its meme token trading. 

The TRON network reached more than 10.4M transactions on October 24, a one-year peak. The chain has achieved over 13M daily transactions for its absolute record, and only a few days of peak, anomalous transaction activity. 

TRON transactions expanded in October, boosted by stablecoin usage. | Source: Tronscan

TRON transactions have gradually expanded for the whole of 2024, claiming up to $8.4B in daily volume transfers. The chain reports more than 296M accounts and over 2.1M active daily accounts with a repeating pattern. 

While TRON has seen some skepticism on the organic origin of the traffic, the chain remains widely used for its own set of apps, games, and DeFi. In the previous month, TRON also launched BitGo services, adding wrapped BTC (WBTC) to its portfolio. As of November 4, 99 WBTC were in circulation on the TRON network. 

TRON traffic led to record fees

Additional data reveals that TRON carries up to 43% of all altcoin traffic. Based on CryptoQuant’s data , TRON expanded its share of transactions compared to other top altcoin chains. The share of all big chain activity can shift daily, though TRON is showing a clear trend of building up activities while other chains remain stagnant. 

The October success for TRON was not majorly affected by the slowdown of meme token activity. TRON’s native meme token platform slowed down to almost no new launches since September, and most meme trading is liked to SunDog.

As a result of the heightened traffic, October saw TRON fees rise to $207.26M for the month. October’s revenues are the second-highest in TRON’s history, only surpassed by August’s result of over $221, noted the founder of TRON Justin Sun . 

Daily, TRON produced over $5M in fees and up to $9M on days of record activity. Due to incentives and payouts to validators, TRON retains $23.94M as earnings. October saw accelerated fees and higher earnings, again with an upward trend for 2023. Fees were higher compared to September’s result of $198M .

After a successful month, TRX also rallied, stabilizing at $0.16. For the past month, TRON remained above $0.15, with trading volumes accelerating above $400M in the past two weeks. The TRON network also carries $6.78B in value locked, on a market cap of around $14B. With this valuation, TRON is considered a moderately undervalued network. 

TRON activity gets a boost from stablecoins

One of the driving factors for TRON activity was the turnover of Tether (USDT) stablecoins, which reached the highest levels since 2023. The profile of USDT users on TRON also shifted, with growth in mid-range transactions of $1,000-$10K and $10K-$100K.

TRON expanded the share of mid-range USDT transactions between $1,000 and $100K. | Source: Dune Analytics

The expansion also came after a year-long addition to the supply of USDT on TRON. At the beginning of the year, the USDT supply started at 45B tokens and gradually grew to over 62B. TRON became the leading network for USDT, with around 50B tokens on Ethereum, and the rest on smaller chains. 

TRON’s USDT version also saw the biggest number of senders across all chains. Over three million addresses sent USDT, while 3.6M addresses received the stablecoins. TRON transactions under $10K have also grown by more than 700% since 2021. 

Is the TRON traffic organic?

The smooth rise of TRON traffic over the past months raised questions if all the transactions were real. Some proof-of-stake chains can keep sending cheap transactions between validators to boost volumes. 

One of the hypotheses is that part of the traffic on TRON is simply spam, or created deliberately to fake activity. The other possible explanation is TRON-based games, which require on-chain transactions. Previously, TRON has gone through a series of similar games, often tied to short-term network congestion. 

TRON continues to carry high-risk apps and gambling hubs, as the chain is not regulated. TRON has also raised doubts about serving illegal transactions and scams using USDT tied to personalized scams.