From 2023 to 2026, the TRON network showed exponential growth, mainly driven by its dominant role in USDT stablecoin transactions. This growth led to record protocol revenue, but at the same time caused a sharp increase in user fees. By mid-2025, fees reached a level that reduced the network’s competitiveness. Typical USDT transfers cost between 1 and 7 US dollars, which forced the governing community to take action.

A key event was the strategic fee reduction on August 29, 2025, when TRON super representatives approved a decrease in the cost of one energy unit by about 60%. This measure aimed to restore the network’s attractiveness for micropayments and mass usage. However, analysts expect that fees may rise again in late 2025 or early 2026 due to an increase in the TRX price and growing demand for network resources.

During this period, TRON firmly secured its position as the leading platform for USDT. By the end of 2024, it surpassed Ethereum in the circulating supply of the stablecoin and reached more than 60% of the global market share by mid-2025. High transaction costs had a strong impact on businesses, especially payment service providers (PSPs) and high-volume merchants. This forced them to use complex cost-optimization strategies such as energy renting, transaction batching, and internal clearing.

Dynamics of the TRON Network (2023–2026): Growth, Congestion, and Fee Reduction

The analysis of key TRON network metrics from 2023 to 2025 shows a clear path: rapid growth in activity, driven by the popularity of USDT, led to peak revenues and network congestion. As a result, this situation created the need for a major revision of the fee structure.

Network Fees and Protocol Revenue

• Revenue growth: TRON protocol revenue (all paid and burned fees) increased for seven consecutive quarters and reached an all-time high of 151 million US dollars in Q3 2024. Total monthly network fees grew from about 35 million US dollars at the end of 2021 to 212 million US dollars in November 2024, showing a fivefold increase.
• High costs for users: By mid-2025, the rise in the TRX price and energy fees caused the cost of a regular USDT transfer for retail users without optimization to reach 1–3 US dollars. Transfers from an empty wallet could cost 6–7 US dollars.
• Fee reduction: On August 29, 2025, TRON super representatives approved a reduction in the price per energy unit by about 60% (for example, from 210 sun to 100 sun). This immediately reduced transaction fees by almost half. The decision was made with the expectation that higher transaction volumes would compensate for the lower revenue per individual transaction.

Cost of Energy and Network Activity

• Energy mechanism: TRON uses energy to execute smart contracts, including TRC-20 token transfers (USDT). The cost of energy is set by network parameters. In 2023–2024, the price was 0.0001–0.00021 TRX per unit of energy. A standard USDT transfer required 64,285–130,000 energy units, which equaled 13–27 TRX when burned.
• Growth in consumption: Total energy consumption on the network almost doubled compared to the peak of the previous cycle, increasing from 2.6 trillion units in 2020 to 5.8 trillion units in October 2024. This shows a sharp rise in smart contract usage.
• Block congestion: By 2025, the network consistently produced about 25,000 blocks per day. Average gas usage reached a level of “0.1” (interpreted as 10% of maximum capacity), indicating a stable but not fully saturated load. USDT transactions accounted for more than 90% of all transaction activity and were the main consumer of network resources.

Transaction Volume and USDT Supply

• Number of transactions: The daily number of transactions increased from 2.5 million in mid-2022 to more than 9 million by 2025 (a growth of 260%). About 4.5 million of these were USDT transfers. The number of daily active addresses reached 1.5 million.
• Growth of USDT supply: The amount of USDT on the TRON network grew from about 48 billion US dollars in 2023 to around 62 billion by the end of 2024. By mid-2025, this figure exceeded 80 billion US dollars. During the first half of 2025 alone, 22 billion new TRON-USDT were issued. TRON’s share of the global USDT market reached about 63%.

Summary Table of Trends (2023–2025)

Fee Analysis: Reasons for Growth and Future Outlook

The increase in fees until mid-2025 was caused by a combination of strong demand for USDT transactions, TRX price dynamics, and a slow response from network governance. The later fee reduction was a strategic move, but it does not guarantee low costs in the long term.

Factors that led to fee growth before 2025

1. Growth of USDT transactions: USDT (TRC-20) transfers became the main use case of the network. This caused a sharp increase in demand for energy.
2. Resource model: TRON uses a dual model: bandwidth for simple transfers and energy for smart contracts. As USDT traffic grew, free or low-cost resources (received through TRX staking) were quickly used up. More users were forced to burn TRX to pay for energy at the “spot” price.
3. Rise in TRX price: Since fees are paid in TRX, their value in US dollars directly depends on the market price of the coin. The increase in the TRX price in 2024 automatically raised transaction costs in USD.
4. Governance delays: Network parameters, including the energy price, were not adjusted fast enough to offset the growth in demand and the higher TRX price. This led to periods of “energy shortage” and high effective fees.

Fee Outlook for Late 2025 – Early 2026

Analysts expect that, despite the reduction in energy prices in August 2025, fees for end users may rise again.

• Potential rise in TRX price: Forecasts for 2025–2026 suggest that the TRX price could increase to 0.3–0.4 US dollars. Even with the reduced energy price (100 sun), this could cause the cost of a USDT transfer without staking or energy renting to reach 2–5 US dollars again.
• Recovery of demand: Lower fees are meant to stimulate activity, including micropayments and dApps. If network capacity grows more slowly than demand, this could once again lead to congestion and higher effective fees.
• Governance asymmetry: Super representatives can both lower and raise the energy price. If TRX burning drops too much (reducing deflation) or if spam problems appear, network parameters may be adjusted upward.

Impact on Business and Optimization Strategies

High and volatile TRON fees have a direct impact on operating costs and business models of payment service providers (PSPs), iGaming operators, and other merchants with high transaction volumes.

Effects on PSPs and merchants

• Lower profitability: For PSPs, a USDT payout that previously cost cents began to cost several US dollars. Even after the fee reduction in August 2025, the cost of a USDT transfer on TRON remained at 2.0–4.2 US dollars, which is about 15 times more expensive than on Arbitrum. This forces PSPs either to absorb the costs and reduce their margins or to pass them on to customers.
• Operating costs (TCO): For iGaming operators and exchanges that process thousands of withdrawals every day, fees become a significant expense item. This pushes them to increase minimum withdrawal amounts, introduce extra fees, or redirect users to cheaper networks.
• Changes in stablecoin routing: High fees make TRON unprofitable for micropayments and small P2P transfers. This may lead to these transaction flows moving to cheaper L1/L2 networks or centralized platforms.

Methods to Reduce Fees for Businesses

Businesses can significantly reduce gas costs on the TRON network (by 50–80%) by using a combination of on-chain and off-chain strategies.

Key Tactics Include:

• Energy renting: Using platforms such as JustLend DAO or Tronsave to rent energy on demand, which is much cheaper than directly burning TRX.
• Batching: Combining multiple payouts (10–100) into a single transaction using custom smart contracts.
• Internal clearing (netting): Offsetting incoming and outgoing flows at the PSP level and settling only the net amount on the blockchain.
• TRX staking: Freezing TRX to generate free energy and bandwidth.

TRON’s Dominance in the USDT Ecosystem

By 2025, TRON became the clear leader in both the supply and usage of USDT, significantly ahead of its main competitor, Ethereum.

Comparative Analysis of USDT Supply (billion USD)

TRON surpassed Ethereum in circulating USDT supply in November 2024 and continued to increase the gap throughout 2025.

Comparison of Transfer Volumes

• TRON: Daily transfer volume grew to 20–30 billion US dollars by 2025. More than 730,000 USDT wallets were active on the network each week.
• Ethereum: Daily volume stayed in the range of 5–10 billion US dollars, limited by high fees. The number of active USDT wallets was about 79,000 per week.
• Other networks: The combined daily volume on networks such as BSC, Solana, and TON did not exceed 5 billion US dollars.

These figures confirm that TRON is the main settlement network for USDT payments, while Ethereum keeps its role mainly in the DeFi sector.

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