Cardano News: Rewards Still Depend on Reserve Emissions

It’s not big news, but Cardano generated 3.3 million ADA in transaction fees against 493.7 million ADA in staking rewards across the 73 five-day epochs ending Sept. 1, 2026.

Fees covered about 0.668% of rewards, leaving the reward pool roughly 149.6 times larger than fee revenue.That gap widened as usage thinned out.

Average daily transactions fell 72.46%, from 90,294 in 2022 to 24,869 between January and August 2026, turning the fee-versus-reward math into Cardano’s most pressing structural question heading into its next scaling upgrade.

Cardano’s Reward Model Faces a Growing Fee Revenue GapCardano (@Cardano) collected 3.3 million cardano:native in transaction fees across 73 epochs from Sept.