Cardano transaction fees cover less than 1% of staking rewards as activity drops 72%

Cardano’s fee revenue is far below the amount paid out as staking rewards. Over 73 five‑day epochs ending 1 September 2026, the network earned 3.3 million ADA in transaction fees but distributed 493.7 million ADA in rewards, a ratio of roughly 1 fee to 150 rewards.

Fee‑to‑reward gap

The fee‑revenue figure represents about 0.668 % of the total rewards paid during the same period. The gap is consistent across two measurement windows: a 12‑month aggregate and a single epoch (epoch 654), both showing fees well under 1 % of rewards.

Declining transaction volume

• Average daily transactions fell from 90,294 in 2022 to 24,869 in 2026, a 72.46 % decline.
• Transaction throughput averaged 0.251 transactions per second in epoch 654.
• Bot‑generated transactions rose from 11.5 % of total in 2022 to 32.8 % in 2026.

Staking participation trends

The share of circulating ADA that was staked dropped from 75.6 % at the end of 2022 to 58.3 % in the final epoch of the study period.

Reserve emissions and future revenue needs

At epoch 655 the reserve held 6.13 billion ADA (13.62 % of the 45 billion ADA maximum supply). Reserve emissions fund the majority of rewards, but these emissions decay over time, reducing the amount that fees would need to replace.

Scaling upgrades and economic implications

Planned upgrades such as the Leios scaling solution aim to increase throughput to tens of transactions per second. However, higher capacity alone does not guarantee the fee revenue needed to narrow the reward gap; sustained user demand and higher average fees would be required.

Key takeaways

1. Fees covered only about 0.7 % of staking rewards over the past year.
2. Daily transaction volume declined by more than 70 %.
3. Bot activity now accounts for roughly one‑third of all transactions.
4. Staking participation fell by over 17  percentage points.
5. Future scaling upgrades could raise capacity, but actual fee revenue depends on increased paid activity.