Lively customers on the Ethereum community have overtaken main layer 2s as long-term growth methods start to repay.
The variety of lively addresses on Ethereum exceeded 791,000 on Monday, increased than that of the community’s main L2 gamers, together with Base, Arbitrum and Optimism, based on information from Nansen.
Day by day common transaction prices have additionally reached new lows. On Monday, common transaction charges have been solely $0.15. The common charge for a transaction on Ethereum was as excessive as $11 only one 12 months in the past.
These metrics for Ethereum utilities come forward of formidable plans by builders to make the community bulletproof.
Lively addresses on Ethereum overtake L2s, charges price pennies
During the last 12 months, the variety of lively addresses on the Ethereum community has elevated by 71% from 460,000 accounts recorded a 12 months in the past.
Day by 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 mean 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 gasoline charges of over $200.
This raised questions on 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 alternate launched its personal L2, Base, with mainnet opening for customers in August of that 12 months.
Final 12 months noticed two main upgrades to Ethereum. In Could, the Pectra improve elevated the capability of blobs — a software for storing transaction information. Extra blob house helps rollups put up transaction information cheaper and might contribute to decrease charges.
Associated: What’s the Ethereum Prague-Electra (Pectra) improve?
Blob capability was additional elevated within the Fusaka improve, which was activated on Dec. 3, 2025. Fusaka additionally launched Peer Knowledge Availability Sampling, which created a system during which validators didn’t have to obtain complete 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 printed 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 lively addresses, pushed largely by their excessive throughput and recognition for retail and memecoin exercise.
Because the race heats up, Ethereum builders are on the lookout for methods to future-proof the community.
Ethereum for 100 years
On Monday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said on X that the community must get to some extent the place builders can finally stroll away.
He stated that constructing functions is “not doable on a base layer which itself will depend on ongoing updates from a vendor to be able to proceed being usable.” Buterin stated that the blockchain should have “the traits that we attempt for in Ethereum’s functions. Therefore, Ethereum itself should cross the walkaway check.”
Associated: Ethereum should cross ‘walkaway check’ to endure for 100 years: Buterin
The community is much from such some extent, and Buterin prompt a lot of key components to get it “to a spot the place Ethereum’s worth proposition doesn’t strictly rely upon any options that aren’t within the protocol already.”
These included:
Full quantum resistance.
Structure that may broaden to enough scalability, hundreds of occasions 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 a minimum of one in all these containers, 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 carry good parallel processing to the community and likewise enhance the gasoline restrict to 200 million from its present 60 million. It’ll additionally make additional will increase to blob measurement.
Excellent parallel processing will purportedly enhance transaction bandwidth and permit for bigger block sizes with out elevated gasoline 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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