State of Pyth Q1 2025 - adtechsolutions

Physical Address

304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124

State of Pyth Q1 2025


Key Insights

  • Pyth’s oracle network surpassed 100 supported blockchains in January, with new deployments on Monad, HyperEVM, Sonic, TON, Berachain, and others, reflecting growing demand for cross-chain real-time data.
  • Pyth Lazer launched with single millisecond-level updates, offering data 400x faster than before and enabling new use cases in high-frequency trading and real-time DeFi applications.
  • Pyth now offers over 750+ equity feeds, including 50 RWA feeds such as FX and metal rates. Recent additions include U.S. Treasury Rate feeds, with international indices like the FTSE 100 and Hang Seng in preview.
  • Pyth Entropy processed over 1 million requests in Q1’25, generating $32.8K in revenue, a 140% increase from the prior quarter. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter of growth and reflects rising demand for onchain randomness services across DeFi use cases.
  • Express Relay powered $171 million in limit order volume on Kamino in Q1’25, with 590 SOL (approximately $95,000) in searcher tips paid to users. Top traded pairs included SOL/USDC, cbBTC/USDC, and USDT/USDC, highlighting Express Relay’s growing role in onchain order flow execution.

Introduction

Pyth (PYTH) is an oracle network that aims to offer accurate prices for cryptocurrencies, equities, foreign exchange pairs, ETFs, and commodities. Oracle networks aggregate external data and make it available for onchain application use. Pyth fosters a network of first-party (primary source and aggregator) data providers and coordinates a “pull” oracle model. This model scales price feeds across many chains and lowers network costs by offloading update fees to data consumers (applications and developers). Pyth offers four core products:

The integrity of Pyth’s data is dependent on its contributing publisher network, which comprises over 124+ data providers from global exchanges, trading firms, market makers, institutions, and DeFi. A few notable providers include Jane Street, Cboe Global Markets, Binance, Raydium, Osmosis, Galaxy, and 0x. Pyth is focused on making financial market data available to developers on an expanding list of blockchain networks (100+ chains as of writing). For a full primer on Pyth, refer to our Initiation of Coverage report.

Website / X (Twitter) / Discord

Key Metrics

Performance Analysis

Total Transaction Value (TTV)

Total Transaction Volume (TTV) provides a more precise measure of an oracle’s activity by capturing the actual transaction volume it enables rather than just the value of secured assets. Unlike Total Value Secured (TVS), which reflects static asset value, TTV highlights the frequency and scale of transactions relying on an oracle’s data, making it particularly relevant for high-frequency DeFi applications like DEXs and derivatives platforms. By tracking the total volume facilitated across integrated protocols, TTV offers a clearer picture of oracle demand, market share, and revenue potential in the evolving DeFi landscape.

Total Transaction Value (TTV) for Q1’25 reached $149.1 billion, down 14.9% from $175.2 billion in Q4’24. Despite the QoQ decline, TTV remained substantially higher than the $31.3 billion recorded in the same quarter last year, representing a 376.6% increase YoY. The decline aligns with broader market slowdowns observed across DeFi activity in early 2025. As a relatively new metric, TTV will continue to serve as a key indicator of demand for Pyth’s oracle infrastructure across high-throughput applications.

TTV vs. TVS

In Q1’25, Pyth maintained its lead in TTV, recording $149.1 billion, a 14.9% decline from $175.2 billion in Q4’24. Its market share dropped to 32.5%, down from 35.5%. Despite the pullback, Pyth retained the top position and outperformed Chainlink, which saw a larger 27.2% drop, falling from $127.6 billion to $92.9 billion, with market share declining from 25.8% to 20.3%. Edge climbed to second place with $117.8 billion, a 45.4% increase, while Stork fell to third with a 10.6% decrease to $98.4 billion. TWAP reported the steepest decline, down 72.5% to $17.8 million.

In TVS, Pyth also demonstrated relative resilience. While TVS declined slightly by 3.0%, to $7.15 billion, it marked the smallest drop among top oracles and an increase in market share from 10.7% to 12.8%. In contrast, Chainlink led in absolute value with $29.3 billion, but posted a 24.0% decline. Chronicle fell by 12.8% to $9.6 billion, and WINkLink saw the largest decrease, down 45.9% to $3.5 billion. RedStone was the only major oracle to post positive TVS growth, rising 15.3% to $6.3 billion.

Pyth’s relatively smaller declines in both TTV and TVS suggest continued traction despite broader market slowdowns. These shifts further highlight the strategic differentiation across oracle providers: TTV-heavy networks like Pyth and Edge emphasize transaction-driven integrations, while TVS leaders such as Chainlink maintain their historical role in securing protocols like Aave. As the oracle market evolves, these distinctions point to increasingly specialized positioning across financial use cases.

Price Updates

As a pull oracle, Pyth’s demand is reflected by the volume of price updates it provides. In Pyth-secured applications, DeFi users initiate smart contract calls that simultaneously request the latest Pyth price data within the same transaction. This means that each time a DeFi protocol requires updated price information, a call is made to Pyth, and the oracle publishes a real-time price update directly within the transaction.

In Q1’25, Aptos remained the top contributor to Pyth update volume but saw a sharp contraction to 60.1 million updates, down 53.2% from 128.6 million in the previous quarter. Its market share declined from 85.2% to 61.8%, reflecting both the slowdown in onchain activity and continued throttling of sponsored feeds. Despite the pullback, Aptos retained the majority share of Pyth usage, underscoring its central role in the network’s distribution.

Solana recorded a slight increase in updates to 19.6 million, up 5.3% quarter-over-quarter. This lifted its market share from 12.4% to 20.2%, making it one of the few chains to grow in both absolute and relative terms. Ronin, meanwhile, saw a 12.3% decline to 3.2 million updates, though its share edged up to 3.3%, suggesting it held relatively steady amid the broader contraction.

Berachain and Sonic were newly added to the Pyth network this quarter, posting 9.8 million and 4.5 million updates, respectively. These debuts translated to 10.1% and 4.6% market shares, driven by launch-phase activity and early integrations. Given their negligible baselines in prior quarters, growth rates appear outsized; more meaningful trend assessments will be possible as these chains mature and stabilize.

In Q4’24, sponsored updates became the dominant transaction type on Solana, reflecting a growing preference for automated price refresh mechanisms. That trend largely persisted into Q1’25, although with notable shifts across update categories. Sponsored updates remained the largest category, totaling 12.52 million transactions in Q1’25. This represented a 1.0% increase from 12.38 million in Q4’24. These updates are powered by the Pyth Scheduler, a permissionless offchain service that regularly submits verified prices using Wormhole Guardian signatures. Their continued dominance suggests growing adoption of scheduled oracle updates across Solana-based applications.

Non-sponsored updates, which are manually triggered and bypass the Scheduler, grew from 6.20 million to 7.30 million in Q1’25, marking a 17.7% QoQ increase. This rebound contrasts with the moderate decline seen in Q4’24 and indicates a resurgence in use cases that rely on ad-hoc or on-demand oracle reads, potentially driven by integrations with protocols requiring more granular control. Atomic updates, which had collapsed in Q4’24 following a peak in Q3’24, declined further in Q1’25. Only 2,967 such transactions were recorded for the quarter, down 89.5% from 28,242 in Q4’24.

Entropy

Pyth Entropy offers developers a secure way to generate random numbers on the blockchain, leveraging two-party randomness to ensure trustworthy outcomes. This randomness solution supports applications requiring unpredictability, such as NFT mints, gaming, and consensus mechanisms.

Pyth Entropy continued its growth trajectory, with 1.62 million requests processed in Q1’25, up 479.4% from 279,742 in Q4’24. Corresponding revenue reached $32,785, marking a 140.3% increase QoQ. While still early in its lifecycle, this fourth consecutive quarter of tracked growth indicates strengthening usage patterns and continued traction for Pyth’s randomness service. The increase in both volume and revenue suggests growing demand for onchain randomness as a service.

User Costs (EVM)

While the cost of pulling a Pyth update is minimal, users are still responsible for the gas fees associated with their DeFi transactions. These gas costs apply solely to users, with no expense incurred by Pyth.

Gas costs declined across most EVM chains in Q1’25, reversing the upward trend seen in the prior quarter. Arbitrum remained the largest contributor by total gas expenditure, though costs fell 64.9%, from $2.36 million to $827,255. BNB Chain continued to grow, with a 14.9% increase to $136,843, maintaining upward momentum following sharp gains in Q4’24. Base recorded the steepest drop among the major chains, down 46.1% to $56,660, while Optimism fell 64.0% to $31,665. ZKsync was relatively flat, increasing 2.0% to $26,228.

In previous quarters, gas costs outside the top four were grouped under an “Other” category. Moving forward, this has been replaced with the fifth-ranking chain, as the “Other” category has consistently reflected activity from a single dominant chain. This change improves granularity and better reflects network-specific usage trends.

Express Relay on Solana (Kamino Usage)

Express Relay is Pyth Network’s offchain auction based system designed to mitigate Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) in decentralized finance. Instead of relying on traditional transaction ordering, Express Relay runs isolated auctions where searchers compete for the right to execute user orders. These searchers pay SOL tips, which are incentives returned directly to users. This enhances execution quality and offsets costs that would otherwise be lost to slippage or MEV.

Kamino Finance Kamino Finance integrated in Q4’24 to power Kamino Swap, a Solana-based trading platform. The integration enabled decentralized limit orders with centralized exchange-level execution, allowing market makers to compete on price while delivering value back to users through searcher tips. Kamino has since become a key venue demonstrating how Express Relay can bring high-performance, low-cost trading infrastructure to DeFi.

In Q1’25, Kamino Swap processed $171 million in limit order volume, up 824% QoQ from $18.5 million in Q4. A total of 16,787 orders were executed, nearly unchanged from the 16,982 orders in Q4, while 590 SOL (approximately $95,000) in searcher tips were paid to users, reflecting an 855% increase QoQ from $9,951.

Top traded pairs:

  • SOL/USDC
  • cbBTC/USDC
  • USDT/USDC

The substantial increase in volume and user incentives, despite a flat order count, suggests a meaningful rise in average trade size and greater participation by high-value traders. Express Relay continues to drive liquidity and efficiency for decentralized execution on Solana.

Oracle Integrity Staking (OIS)

Oracle Integrity Staking (OIS) was introduced on Sept. 21, 2024, as a key addition to Pyth Network’s staking framework, designed to enhance data reliability through economic incentives. OIS enables participants to stake PYTH tokens toward specific data publishers, aligning financial incentives with price accuracy. Stakers allocate their tokens to publishers, who are rewarded for providing high-quality data and penalized for inaccuracies. This model ensures that all current and future Pyth price feeds are secured by an incentive-driven mechanism, reinforcing the integrity of oracle data.

In Q1’25, total PYTH staked in Oracle Integrity Staking (OIS) rose 176.4% QoQ, increasing from 230.9 million PYTH at the end of Q4’24 to 638.7 million PYTH by the close of the quarter. This substantial growth occurred despite broader market downturns and a general decline in DeFi activity, reflecting strong confidence in Pyth’s staking model. The sharp increase highlights continued adoption of OIS as participants increasingly commit capital to support data accuracy while earning protocol-aligned rewards.

Qualitative Analysis

Protocol Updates

Pyth Lazer

In Q1’25, Pyth Network introduced, In Q1’25, Pyth Network introduced Pyth Lazer, a new ultra-low latency data service tailored for protocols that depend on real-time market responsiveness. Designed for speed-critical applications such as perpetual futures, high-frequency trading platforms, and derivatives protocols, Pyth Lazer delivers price updates at intervals as fast as 1 millisecond, with additional support for 50ms, 200ms, and customizable frequency options. This release reflects a growing demand in DeFi for infrastructure capable of meeting or exceeding the performance of centralized exchanges.

While Pyth Core continues to serve as the network’s decentralized standard for reliable oracle data, Pyth Lazer prioritizes raw performance. It minimizes latency between market movement and data delivery, enabling more precise trade execution and reducing exposure to latency-based risks such as front-running. Developers can select update frequencies based on protocol-specific needs, balancing cost and throughput while maintaining a high degree of responsiveness.

Although currently focused on single-millisecond price updates, Pyth Lazer is positioned to support a broader market data suite in the future. Planned features include bid-ask spreads, market depth, and custom averaging techniques. These additions, once implemented, are expected to help close the functionality gap between onchain and centralized trading platforms.

Performance optimization is a core component of Pyth Lazer’s design. On Solana, the system supports up to 20 concurrent price feeds per transaction at a compute cost of 15,000 units, making it feasible for high-throughput strategies without overwhelming network resources. The architecture is scalable to over 1,000 assets, ensuring broad asset coverage across emerging and established markets.

Access to Pyth Lazer is granted through permissioned integration. Notably, Coinbase Exchange became one of the first adopters in Q1’25, integrating Lazer to support precise, real-time price feeds across its trading infrastructure.

Governance

The PYTH token is an SPL token on Solana. Its core utility is governance and Oracle Integrity Staking (OIS). PYTH holders can guide protocol development by staking the asset and voting on Pyth Improvement Proposals (PIPs). Pyth DAO is structured around three governance councils: the Pythian Council, the Price Feed Council, and the newly formed Community Council. These bodies are responsible for evaluating and implementing specific PIPs, with delegated authority over different aspects of protocol governance.

There are two types of PIPs: Constitutional and Operational.

  • Constitutional PIPs cover protocol architecture, DAO structure, and governance rules. They require >67% approval.
  • Operational PIPs involve elections, treasury management, and council operations. They require >50% approval and can be delegated to council members.

PIPs

Throughout Q1, Pyth approved two new Constitutional PIPs out of the three being suggested. On the other hand, 15 Operational PIPs were approved, reflecting its continued governance activity on Solana. The relevant proposals are listed below, showcasing the ongoing development and improvements within the Pyth ecosystem.

Constitutional:

  • CO-PIP-5: Approved the deployment of Pyth Lazer on Solana mainnet. The proposal introduced a parallel system to Pythnet, offering ultra-low-latency price feeds with update speeds as fast as 1ms. It authorized the deployment of on-chain verifier contracts and off-chain infrastructure, with Douro Labs initially managing the service and access permissions. The Pythian Council was designated as the upgrade authority, and the fee was set at 1 lamport per price update to encourage adoption.
  • CO-PIP-7: Established the Community Council as a formal body within the Pyth DAO. The council is responsible for supporting community growth, driving ecosystem initiatives, and improving contributor coordination. It will operate alongside existing governance structures such as the Pythian Council and Price Feed Council. Members are elected by the DAO and are expected to represent community interests while helping administer non-technical proposals and programs.

Operational:

  • OP-PIP-43: Delegated protocol-generated assets (PGAs) to a new cohort of Pythnet validators. This measure aimed to expand and diversify the validator set by supporting recently onboarded participants. The delegation was distributed to strengthen decentralization and improve network resilience.
  • OP-PIP-44: Approved an upgrade to the Pyth oracle program to increase its capacity for supporting additional price feeds. The change enhances scalability by allowing more assets to be published concurrently. This operational improvement supports growing demand across integrated applications.
  • OP-PIP-45: Designated Douro Labs as the initial trusted signer for Pyth Lazer. This role allows Douro to produce verifiable price data for latency-sensitive applications consuming Lazer feeds. The assignment is part of the system’s early-stage rollout and will be revisited as the infrastructure matures and decentralization options are explored.
  • OP-PIP-46: Authorized an upgrade to the Pyth Lazer verifier contract. The update included improvements to support a wider range of price feeds and optimize verification logic. It ensures the system remains compatible with performance-critical use cases as adoption grows.
  • OP-PIP-47: Allocated additional protocol-generated assets to a new set of Pythnet validators. This action supports decentralization goals. It also helps newer validators become more operationally sustainable. The proposal continues the DAO’s validator expansion strategy, building momentum from earlier delegations.
  • OP-PIP-48: Upgraded the Pyth oracle contract on NEAR testnet. The update ensures compatibility with recent improvements to the protocol and prepares the deployment for future mainnet readiness.
  • OP-PIP-49: Approved the upgrade of the Pyth oracle contract on NEAR mainnet. This change aligns the mainnet deployment with prior testnet updates. It enhances performance, supports additional assets, and ensures consistent behavior across networks.
  • OP-PIP-50 (important): Implemented Pyth update fees across eight supported blockchains, marking a major shift in the network’s economic model. Until now, Pyth has generated little direct revenue per oracle update. With this proposal, users now pay for updates, aligning incentives between data providers and consumers. This move sets a precedent for expanding update fees to other chains, as seen in subsequent proposals.
  • OP-PIP-51: Delegated protocol-generated assets to another round of new validators on Pythnet. This continues the DAO’s validator expansion efforts. It supports network decentralization and encourages broader participation in consensus.
  • OP-PIP-52: Upgraded the Pyth oracle contract on the TON testnet. This change improves compatibility with the network and supports future scaling. It also prepares the testnet deployment for eventual mainnet integration.
  • OP-PIP-53: Delegated protocol-generated assets to a single new validator on Pythnet. The proposal targeted a specific validator addition rather than a broad batch, reinforcing the DAO’s ongoing strategy of incremental decentralization.
  • OP-PIP-54: Upgraded the Pyth Express Relay program on Solana. The update introduced performance improvements and extended support for additional price feeds. It enhances the system’s ability to serve latency-sensitive applications operating on Solana.
  • OP-PIP-55: Upgraded the Pyth Receiver program on Solana mainnet to support TWAP (Time-Weighted Average Price) calculations. This functionality enables protocols to access smoothed price data directly on-chain. It benefits applications that require more stable pricing inputs, such as lending markets or volatility-sensitive strategies.
  • OP-PIP-56: Upgraded the Pyth oracle contract on the TON mainnet. The proposal brings the mainnet deployment in line with prior testnet enhancements. It improves system performance and expands compatibility for future integrations.
  • OP-PIP-57: Approved the election of seven members to the newly formed Community Council. The proposal also allocated 1.42 million PYTH from the DAO treasury to fund council operations over a six-month term. This council will support community engagement and facilitate non-technical governance initiatives within the Pyth ecosystem.

Partnerships and Integrations

Bridging Markets: Expanding Into Traditional Assets and RWAs

Pyth Network significantly broadened its coverage of traditional financial instruments this quarter, reinforcing its role as a unified price layer for both DeFi and institutional markets. The network now supports over 750+ U.S. equity feeds, with 570 added this quarter, including top Nasdaq-listed companies and the S&P 500. The network also expanded into sovereign bond markets with the introduction of U.S. Treasury Rate feeds across various tenors, and previewed upcoming support for international equities such as the FTSE 100 and Hang Seng Index. Additionally, Coinbase International integrated Pyth Lazer to enhance its real-time market data infrastructure, further bridging centralized exchanges with decentralized oracle networks.

By offering institutional-grade market data freely across over 100 blockchains and platforms like TradingView and OpenBB, Pyth continues to reduce the data access gap between centralized finance and decentralized protocols. This expansion into real-world assets marks a critical step toward building a global, permissionless financial market where cross-border trading, investment, and access to financial information are no longer constrained by traditional infrastructure.

Pyth also expanded its roster of first-party institutional data contributors with new publishers joining from both traditional finance and emerging markets. These include:

  • Revolut, a global neobank with over 35 million customers.
  • TD Markets, a licensed brokerage operating across Africa.
  • StoneX, a publicly listed U.S.-based financial services firm

The addition of these publishers reflects a broader trend: financial institutions that have historically remained outside the crypto-native space are increasingly recognizing the strategic value of publishing first-party market data on decentralized infrastructure.

Real-Time Feeds for DeFAI Applications

DeFAI refers to the integration of decentralized finance protocols with artificial intelligence agents that can autonomously execute on-chain actions. These agents are designed to interact directly with smart contracts, automating tasks such as trading, liquidity provision, and asset management based on real-time data inputs.

Pyth’s low-latency price feeds are being incorporated into several early DeFAI tools, where access to real-time, programmatic data is a requirement for timely execution. With update frequencies as low as 1 millisecond and support for over 1,200 assets, Pyth’s feeds offer infrastructure that aligns with the needs of automated agents operating across various blockchains.

Current integrations include:

  • Solana AgentKit (SendAI): A toolkit for building Solana-native AI agents that can read data and execute transactions directly on-chain.
  • Coinbase AgentKit: An AI framework developed by Coinbase that enables agents to hold wallets and interact with protocols through natural language and logic-based prompts.
  • Move AgentKit: An agent development toolkit built for Move-based chains such as Aptos and Sui.
  • Hey Anon, EDAS, and ElizaOS: A set of experimental agent interfaces and OS-level tools exploring autonomous execution using on-chain data inputs.

These early integrations indicate increasing developer interest in applying real-time oracle infrastructure to automated financial agents. Pyth’s price feeds provide a data layer compatible with these applications across EVM, SVM, and Move-based environments.

Community Support and Engagement

Pyth Network launched Insights Hub, a public analytics dashboard offering real-time visibility into the performance and integrity of its price feeds and data publishers. Designed to support developers, traders, and institutions, the Hub provides transparent metrics on feed accuracy, latency, uptime, and publisher reliability. Users can view detailed breakdowns for each asset feed, monitor upcoming listings, and evaluate the technical quality of the data streams being used in their applications.

Insights Hub also introduces full publisher-level analytics, including rankings based on staleness, price deviation, and feed coverage. This allows DAO members, integrators, and end users to better assess data quality across the network and make more informed decisions. By offering a single point of access for real-time market data verification and network performance, Insights Hub reflects Pyth’s ongoing effort to raise transparency standards and improve community trust across DeFi.

Closing Summary

In Q1’25, Pyth retained its position as the leading oracle by transaction volume, processing $149.1 billion in TTV despite a 15% decline from the previous quarter. TVS fell just 3% to $7.15 billion, the smallest decrease among major oracles. Meanwhile, price updates dropped 78.3% to 78.7 million, reflecting broader DeFi activity slowdowns. On the upside, Oracle Integrity Staking participation surged, with staked PYTH rising 176% to $638.7 million, signaling deepening alignment between users and the network’s incentive model.

The launch of Pyth Lazer introduced sub-second price feeds, positioning the network for latency-sensitive use cases in trading and automation. Pyth Entropy had its strongest quarter yet, surpassing 1 million requests and generating $32.8K in revenue, up 140% QoQ. Traditional asset coverage expanded with U.S. Treasury Rate feeds and early support for international indices. Pyth now offers over 750+ U.S. equity feeds. These milestones, alongside new institutional publishers and broader network integrations, reinforce Pyth’s role as a core data layer across both DeFi and traditional finance.

Let us know what you loved about the report, what may be missing, or share any other feedback by filling out this short form. All responses are subject to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

This report was commissioned by the Pyth Data Association. All content was produced independently by the author(s) and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Messari, Inc. or the organization that requested the report. The commissioning organization may have input on the content of the report, but Messari maintains editorial control over the final report to retain data accuracy and objectivity. Author(s) may hold cryptocurrencies named in this report. This report is meant for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. You should conduct your own research and consult an independent financial, tax, or legal advisor before making any investment decisions. Past performance of any asset is not indicative of future results. Please see our Terms of Service for more information.

No part of this report may be (a) copied, photocopied, duplicated in any form by any means or (b) redistributed without the prior written consent of Messari®.



Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *