Everything

Long

Tail

Ethereum

Ethereum accounted for 31.0% of swaps on <a href="https://simpleswap.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">SimpleSwap</a>&nbsp;in the first half of 2026, making it the most-used single chain during the period.
Everything outside the four biggest chains accounted for 71.4%.
Most of us have spent three years expecting the opposite: a few large chains soak up the activity, and the rest fades into noise. In this data, the rest is where the traffic is, and the large chains are what it connects to.
<h2 id="strong-why-does-the-table-not-add-up-to-100-strong">Why does the table not add up to 100</h2>
Each row answers one question: what share of swaps had at least one leg on this chain. Nearly every swap involves two chains, so a single transaction appears in several rows at once. The column runs past 200% on purpose.
The figures come from the <a href="https://bit.ly/4chQGmj" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">H1 2026 Swap Report</a>, published this week by SimpleSwap. It covers 26 weeks of swap activity, and each section opens with a public market benchmark before any platform numbers appear.
<img src="https://blockonomi.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/press-release-1787730262531-0.png" alt="">
Cross-chain swaps made up 91.8% of the half, and the monthly figure stayed between 90.3% and 93.3% even while the spot market roughly halved. Some of that is the product describing itself, since people come to an aggregator in order to cross chains. What it cannot explain is how the number still held while everything around it fell. Industry-wide, cross-chain volume is up roughly a hundredfold since 2022, by <a href="https://li.fi/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">LI.FI</a>’s count.
<h2 id="strong-money-on-one-side-traffic-on-the-other-strong">Money on one side, traffic on the other</h2>
The last column divides a chain’s share of money by its share of swaps.
A swap involving Ethereum is worth about twice as much as one involving BSC. Ethereum and TRON handle more value than their transaction count suggests, while Solana and BSC do the reverse, moving plenty of trades at smaller sizes.
Now read the top row again. Chains outside the big four sit at 1.04, which is average. The comfortable assumption is that small chains carry small amounts, and it is wrong. The typical swap out there is the same size as anywhere else. It just happens more often.
<h2 id="strong-where-a-partner-agrees-and-where-it-does-not-strong">Where a partner agrees, and where it does not</h2>
<a href="https://rubic.exchange/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Rubic</a>&nbsp;ran the same comparison on its own traffic. TRON climbed from 4.2% to 9.4% of its cross-chain transactions and from 11.9% to 38.4% of its cross-chain money, which matches TRON’s position as the biggest net gainer in SimpleSwap’s own numbers.
On the long tail the two disagree. Everything outside Rubic’s top four kept its share of transactions while losing close to half its cross-chain money, and Rubic says plainly that this is not a growth story. The platforms count different things, so some of the gap is the comparison rather than the market. TRON survives both readings.
“What is apparent to us as a multi-chain wallet is how frequent cross-chain activity has become within the wallet,” said Zerobit, CEO of <a href="https://talisman.xyz/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Talisman Wallet</a>. Users follow assets across ecosystems now instead of staying put, he said, and they want to get there without friction.
<h2 id="strong-what-to-measure-instead-strong">What to measure instead</h2>
For years, the question about an exchange was how many assets it listed, because that is easy to compare and easy to advertise. If nine swaps in ten cross a chain boundary, it is the wrong question. Big chains decide the value of a swap. Everything else decides whether it can happen at all. A venue with 3,000 assets stranded on four chains is narrower than one with fewer assets and further reach.
Networks are the last of the report’s six sections. The others cover the drop in swap volume, the rotation out of Bitcoin, and the 48 days a new asset waits before anyone uses it.
About the report
The SimpleSwap H1 2026 Swap Report covers 1 January to 30 June 2026, benchmarked against the second half of 2025. Each section opens with a public market benchmark before any internal figure appears, drawing on <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/research" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">CoinGecko</a>&nbsp;for exchange volumes and capitalization; <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">DeFiLlama</a>, together with Visa’s <a href="https://visaonchainanalytics.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Allium-powered dashboard</a>, for stablecoin supply and settlement; <a href="https://alternative.me/crypto/fear-and-greed-index/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Alternative.me</a>&nbsp;for sentiment; and LI.FI plus <a href="https://www.circle.com/cross-chain-transfer-protocol" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Circle</a>&nbsp;disclosures for cross-chain context. All figures are aggregated across swaps routed through the platform, and nothing in the report identifies a user, an address, or the timing of an individual transaction. Exactly one dollar figure appears in the text, and it is a measurement threshold rather than a platform total. The report describes past market behavior and contains no price forecasts.
Full report and methodology at the <a href="https://bit.ly/4chQGmj" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">SimpleSwap blog</a>. Media and analysts can request additional data cuts at marketing@simpleswap.io.
About SimpleSwap
SimpleSwap is a self-custodial multi-source swap aggregator. It draws liquidity from more than 20 CEX and DEX sources, covers 2,800+ assets, and handles provider and route selection under the hood. Over 8 years, 10M+ users have swapped through SimpleSwap, and 6,000+ projects use it as a business solution, including Exodus and Tangem. The only official SimpleSwap website is simpleswap.io. The company operates no other domains, and any lookalike address is not affiliated with SimpleSwap.
The post <a href="https://blockonomi.com/the-long-tail-of-blockchains-turned-out-to-be-the-main-channel/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">The Long Tail of Blockchains Turned Out to Be the Main Channel</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blockonomi.com" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Blockonomi</a>.

The Long Tail of Blockchains Turned Out to Be the Main Channel

Table of Contents

Blockonomi

Other articles published on Aug 26, 2026

Join our free newsletter for daily crypto updates!