Energetic customers on the Ethereum community have overtaken main layer 2s as long-term improvement methods start to repay.
The variety of energetic addresses on Ethereum exceeded 791,000 on Monday, increased than that of the community’s main L2 gamers, together with Base, Arbitrum and Optimism, in accordance with knowledge from Nansen.
Every day common transaction prices have additionally reached new lows. On Monday, common transaction charges had been solely $0.15. The typical charge for a transaction on Ethereum was as excessive as $11 only one yr in the past.
These metrics for Ethereum utility come forward of bold plans by builders to make the community bulletproof.
Energetic addresses on Ethereum overtake L2s, charges value pennies
Over the past yr, the variety of energetic addresses on the Ethereum community has elevated 71% from 460,000 accounts recorded a yr in the past.
Every day transactions on Ethereum have additionally been hitting all-time highs, and are cheaper than ever. On Tuesday, there have been 2.1 million transactions on the Ethereum blockchain with a median transaction charge of $0.15.
Transacting on Ethereum was notoriously costly within the not-so-distant previous. In late 2021 to mid-2022, when decentralized finance was exploding and the non-fungible token craze had reached its zenith, some customers reported fuel charges of over $200.
This raised questions round how usable Ethereum may actually be. Then in 2023, L2 networks exploded to scale the community as main gamers like Coinbase jumped on board. The crypto change launched its personal L2, Base, with mainnet opening for customers in August of that yr.
Final yr noticed two main upgrades to Ethereum. In Might, the Pectra improve elevated the capability of blobs — a instrument for storing transaction knowledge. Extra blob area helps rollups submit transaction knowledge cheaper and may contribute to decrease charges.
Associated: What’s the Ethereum Prague-Electra (Pectra) improve?
Blob capability was additional elevated within the Fusaka improve, which activated on Dec. 3, 2025. Fusaka additionally launched Peer Information Availability Sampling, which created a system whereby validators didn’t have to obtain whole blobs, however may use small samples for transaction verification.
Along with decrease charges and extra addresses, builders are actually extra ceaselessly selecting Ethereum as a settlement layer. In response to Token Terminal, the variety of new good contracts created and revealed on Ethereum reached an all-time excessive of 8.7 million within the fourth quarter of 2025.
This indicator of future community exercise comes at a time of elevated competitors between layer 1s like Ethereum, Tron, Solana and BNB Chain. Solana and BNB Chain are the trade’s prime networks by transactions and energetic addresses, pushed largely by their excessive throughput and recognition for retail and memecoin exercise.
Because the race heats up, Ethereum builders are searching for methods to future-proof the community.
Ethereum for 100 years
On Monday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated on X that the community must get to some extent the place builders can ultimately stroll away.
He stated that constructing purposes is “not attainable on a base layer which itself relies on ongoing updates from a vendor with a view to proceed being usable.” Buterin stated that the blockchain will need to have “the traits that we attempt for in Ethereum’s purposes. Therefore, Ethereum itself should go the walkaway take a look at.”
Associated: Ethereum should go ‘walkaway take a look at’ to endure for 100 years: Buterin
The community is way from such some extent, and Buterin steered a lot of key elements to get it “to a spot the place Ethereum’s worth proposition doesn’t strictly depend upon any options that aren’t within the protocol already.”
These included:
Full quantum-resistance.
Structure that may increase to adequate scalability, 1000’s of instances over.
State structure that may final many years.
A general-purpose account mannequin.
A proof-of-stake mannequin that may “final and stay decentralized for many years.”
A block-building mannequin that’s proof against centralization.
Buterin added that yearly, Ethereum builders ought to “tick off at the very least one among these bins, and ideally a number of.”
Associated: Ethereum in 2026: Glamsterdam and Hegota forks, L1 scaling and extra
Main adjustments are coming to Ethereum in 2026. The upcoming Glamsterdam fork will deliver excellent parallel processing to the community and likewise improve the fuel restrict to 200 million from its present 60 million. It’s going to additionally make additional will increase to blob measurement.
Good parallel processing will purportedly improve transaction bandwidth and permit for bigger block sizes with out elevated fuel limits.
As Ethereum continues to make community upgrades, the info is exhibiting extra exercise on its L1. The pay-off may quickly be a community builders can stroll away from, and on which future generations of app builders can construct.
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