Tron slashed fees by 60% as Plasma’s launch puts pressure on its USDT moat. Hyperliquid followed with a record month of fees and a growing pipeline of HIP-3 experiments, from equity perps to private token markets.

Tron cut transaction fees by 60% last Friday. While this looks like a move to improve accessibility, the real driver is almost certainly the looming launch of Plasma, which will enable zero-fee USDT transfers.

Tron’s moat has always been its distribution. Users continue to transact on Tron despite much cheaper alternatives, a sign of the deep merchant and banking ties it has built, especially in Latin America. The fact that Tron is now lowering fees could suggest this moat is being threatened.

The stakes are high. Around 90% of Tron’s revenue comes from USDT transfers. Even after the recent cut, average fees sit at $2.80 per transaction, nearly 5x Ethereum’s $0.60. Over the past month, Tron’s USDT supply has fallen 1.4%, representing around $1.1 billion of outflows. At the same time, Plasma’s pre-launch campaigns have already attracted $2 billion in USDT deposits.

Financially, Tron remains solid. On August numbers, the fee cut would drop it from the third to the fourth largest chain by revenue, though it would still generate twice as much as BNB. Its FDV/Fees multiple would shift from roughly Hype’s 36x to Solana’s 135x, a level still well below the broader L1 group.

For the first time, Tron faces a serious challenger in its core market. Only time will tell if the fee cut is sufficient to keep Tron competitive and sustain stablecoin volumes on the network.

— Kunal

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HIP-3 outlook

Hyperliquid reported $113.7 million in fees during August, its highest month on record and 22% above July. This was the third consecutive record month. From January through August, monthly fees increased 121.2%, with an average month-over-month growth rate of 15.4% — equivalent to a 290% annualized CAGR. Assuming September is 10% above August, Q3 fees would total approximately $332 million, an 88.4% increase over Q2. August daily fees averaged $3.67 million, highlighting consistent momentum during a seasonally weaker period for trading.

2025 to date, new listings have generated $125 billion in trading volume, equivalent to roughly $62.5 million in revenue at a standard 5bps fee tier. The median listing has cleared $1.31 billion in volume. This is the segment HIP-3 deployers will be targeting — long-tail and exotic launches. If the Hyperliquid Foundation, which currently manages listings, outsources this function entirely, HIP-3 could open a significant new market opportunity.

The lifecycle of these assets is highly cyclical. On the median, tokens trade 35% of launch-day volume after one week, 22% by week two, and 13% after one month, before stabilizing at lower levels. Sustaining volumes beyond the initial launch window will be key for HIP-3 deployments.

Competition is expected to be intense, but HIP-3 markets extend beyond long-tail tokens as any asset with an oracle can be listed. Unit is pioneering equity perps, targeting US equities with new financial primitives, while Felix appears to be testing Tesla perps. Ventuals is enabling pre-market trading of private tokens not yet listed on traditional exchanges. Other concepts, such as Global Compute’s effort to create markets for hedging compute costs, show the breadth of possible applications.

— Shaunda

1. Hazeflow: Are L2s really secured by Ethereum

Hazeflow released a report questioning whether rollups truly deliver on the promise of being “secured by Ethereum.” The report discussed how bridges, sequencers and governance shape actual security, noting that two-thirds of rollup assets now sit outside Ethereum’s direct guarantees. It highlighted risks from centralized sequencers and corporate governance, while pointing to designs like native and based rollups as potential fixes. The analysis concluded that real Ethereum-level security must come from L1 itself, not off-chain operators.

2. Tristero Research: When slow assets meet fast markets

Tristero Research released a report on the “RWA Liquidity Paradox,” warning that tokenization creates the illusion of liquidity by wrapping illiquid assets like loans and real estate in fast-moving digital shells. The report discussed how this mismatch can amplify shocks, turning slow defaults into rapid onchain crises, with risks escalating further through “RWA-squared” derivatives. It drew parallels to 2008’s mortgage meltdown and argued that without stronger oracles, collateral standards and circuit breakers, tokenized markets may collapse in minutes rather than months.

3. Bedlam: From backrooms to builder codes

Bedlam contrasts the equity and token lifecycles, showing how CEX-first launches recreated the worst of both worlds: extractive fees, distorted incentives and misaligned insiders. It argued the path forward lies in onchain capital formation, with Solana and Hyperliquid enabling transparent price discovery, programmable token launches and user-aligned distribution through builder codes.