Blockchain Revenue Outside the Crypto Industry Hits New Record

In the third quarter of 2026, revenues from blockchain applications outside the crypto industry surpassed the core infrastructure revenue for the first time: $5.3 billion versus $5.1 billion. This is stated in a study by the 1kx fund, which covered more than 2,600 protocols and reports from over 100 public companies. Together with institutional financial services, these areas accounted for 33% of all industry revenues for the quarter, with an annual expectation of about 30%.

The share of these two categories increased from 7% in 2021 to 30% in 2026 (estimate). Infrastructure accounted for 22%, and applications 48%. In the first half of the year, revenues outside the crypto industry grew by 58% year-on-year: from $5.1 billion to $8 billion. The main contribution came from prediction markets, which brought an additional $1.4 billion, and trading of tokenized assets along with related lending about $1.1 billion. Fees within the blockchains, on the contrary, fell: transactions increased, but revenue from their processing halved year-on-year for the half-year.

The industry as a whole is earning less. According to 1kx calculations, in 2026 it will receive about $100 billion, 28% less than in 2025. The peak was in 2021 with a figure of $145 billion, in 2025 revenues amounted to $138 billion, and the forecast for 2026 is about $99 billion. The calculation included not only network fees but also centralized exchange fees, stablecoin issuer revenues from reserves, as well as mining and staking rewards.

The share of public companies in total revenues grew from 7% in 2022 to 16% in 2026. Circle's IPO in 2025 added $1.7 billion, and in 2026 the contribution of the USDC issuer is expected to be $2.7 billion. In the first half of the year, public companies received $8 billion, private ones $29.5 billion. Leading among public companies are Coinbase along with Deribit with $2.6 billion, Circle with $1.4 billion, Robinhood with $490 million, MARA with $340 million, Bitdeer with $320 million, and CleanSpark with $270 million: they accounted for 59% of the sector's revenues. Among private companies, Binance with $5.8 to 7 billion, Tether with $2.9 billion, Stake.com with $2.2 to 3 billion, OKX with $1.1 to 2 billion, Kraken with $1.02 billion, and Kalshi with $0.9 to 1.2 billion, together 52%. Binance alone accounts for about half of all CEX revenue. JPMorgan, BlackRock, CME, Visa, and Robinhood earned about $1.1 billion, other exchanges and market makers, including Bullish and Gemini, about $600 million.

A significant portion of 1kx's calculations relies on extrapolation of data for nine months, so the final figures for 2026 may differ.