Network activity hits historic levels as scalability upgrades and institutional adoption reshape Ethereum usage.
Ethereum has closed the year with a major milestone, as daily transaction volume reached an all-time high, overtaking levels last seen during the peak of the 2021 NFT and DeFi boom. The surge highlights renewed momentum across the network driven by technical upgrades and expanding real-world use cases.
On Dec. 31, Ethereum’s seven-day moving average of daily transactions climbed to 1.87 million, exceeding the prior record of 1.61 million in May 2021 and surpassing the 1.73 million high recorded in August 2025. This data confirms that current network demand is stronger than during the height of NFT speculation.
At the same time, active addresses rose to 728,904, the highest level since mid-2021, while 270,160 new addresses were created in a single day, marking the largest daily increase since early 2018. These figures point to both renewed user engagement and fresh onboarding.
Ethereum’s activity surge follows two major 2025 upgrades: Pectra and Fusaka. These improvements increased blob throughput, enabled account abstraction, raised validator staking limits, and activated PeerDAS, significantly reducing fees while improving scalability. Additional gains came from higher gas limits and zkEVM performance breakthroughs.
Despite growing competition among layer-1 networks, stablecoins, real-world asset tokenization, staking, DeFi, NFTs, gaming, and trading activity remain largely Ethereum or EVM-compatible, reinforcing Ethereum’s central role in the broader blockchain ecosystem.
Disclaimer
This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves risk and may result in financial loss.