Although market volatility has persisted, Ethereum’s on-chain activity has shown a pronounced and sustained increase, with daily transactions consistently exceeding 1.6 million and peaking at 1.88 million in mid‑2025. Observers note that seven-day averages in mid‑2025 surpassed previous records, indicating a persistent upward trend rather than a transient spike, and the number of active wallets reached 127 million, a 22% year‑over‑year rise that underpins higher transaction counts. Aggregate daily transaction volume trended upward despite price swings, suggesting resilience in network usage as both retail and institutional participants adjusted to evolving fee structures and capacity improvements. This pattern contrasts with earlier periods when high fees constrained smaller transfers, highlighting a structural change in network economics. Such increased activity also reflects growing interest in blockchain’s potential to enhance data integrity in various sectors, including healthcare.
Onchain value metrics reinforced the volume data, with July 2025 transaction volume exceeding $238 billion, a 70% increase from June and approaching multi‑year highs, which correlated with broader market rallies and reduced DeFi costs. Total value locked in Ethereum-based protocols remained robust above $45 billion, sustaining activity in lending, swapping, and liquidity provision, while digital asset treasuries expanded ETH allocations and engaged in staking and DeFi operations that contribute recurring transactions. Stablecoin transfers continued to account for a large share of transaction value, reflecting Ethereum’s dominant role in stablecoin supply and settlement, and NFT marketplace trading, which recorded over $5.8 billion in Q1 2025, added episodic but significant throughput.
Technical and protocol developments played a central role in enabling higher throughput, as Layer‑2 scaling solutions and capacity improvements, including the Pectra upgrade and blob data posting by Layer‑2s, reduced average gas fees to about $3.78 per transaction from much higher levels in early 2022. Lower fees and increased mainnet efficiency made routine DeFi interactions and microtransactions more economical, encouraging broader participation. Nevertheless, continued high activity underscores the need for sustained scaling and careful monitoring of congestion and security risks, since rapid growth can expose operational fragilities and increase attack surfaces if not matched by coordinated protocol and ecosystem safeguards. Recent metrics also show that Ethereum maintains a dominant position in stablecoin markets with 60% dominance. Additionally, exchange balances of ETH have fallen to multi-year lows, signaling reduced custodial supply and reinforcing onchain demand.
