Ethereum has recorded new levels of on-chain activity, with its L1 network increasing all-time highs in daily transactions and active addresses. Gas fees, on the other hand, have fallen to the lowest levels in years.
According to Token Terminal data, Ethereum’s daily transactions have surpassed 2 million, while active addresses have maintained above 1 million in recent weeks. These record activity levels coincided with low gas fees, averaging near $10–20 million per day, compared to the over $200 million daily highs recorded during the 2021 bull market.
Ethereum gas fees drop to record lows
A surge in recent institutional investments and retail adoption has driven Ethereum’s growth in network usage. The token surpassed 50 million transactions in August alone, representing its highest monthly figure.
During the same period, the decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume also hit an all-time high, exceeding $130 billion, according to DeFiLlama data. The network transaction value reached $320 billion, marking Ethereum’s third-largest month in transactional activities.
Ethereum’s current market activity levels. Source: Token Terminal
Meanwhile, Ethereum’s total value locked (TVL) has risen to about $86.04 billion, approaching the historic high of $108.8 billion reached in 2021. The increase in on-chain liquidity and activity reflects confidence in the ecosystem and wider usage of its Layer 2 scalability networks, such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base.
Crptopolitan reported that Ether volumes expanded in August, showing robust on-chain activity. The result coincided with a new all-time high for ETH and further expectations of scaling the $5,000 hurdle for the first time.
Ethereum activity has returned to levels not seen since 2021, indicating a combination of value growth and on-chain transfers. The recent ETH rally also demonstrated that the L1 was sufficient for large-scale DeFi, with no significant gas spikes or congestion.
The rise in activity is seen as a sign of retail returning. In the past quarters, retail had almost abandoned ETH, while whales continued to accumulate. Now, Ethereum activity shows a shift in sentiment, with users returning to the most active apps. The Ethereum network carries simple ETH transfers based on gas usage, with USDT and USDC in the top 3 smart contracts.
Overall, Ethereum smart contract creation expanded in 2025, returning to activity levels seen in 2021. This time around, the smart contracts were tied to DeFi, rather than NFTs or the launch of meme tokens.
While on-chain volume activities have maintained higher highs, Ethereum’s average gas prices are now at their lowest annual mean in the network’s history. This drop is largely attributed to the adoption of Layer 2 rollups and protocol-level improvements, such as EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding), which drastically improve data availability and reduce mainnet congestion.
Ethereum network scalability improvements fuel institutional adoption
Ethereum’s daily active addresses recently exceeded 650,000, marking the highest level over two years. Historically, such periods of lower fees have been linked to surges in retail activity, as smaller investors and users re-engage with DeFi protocols, gaming platforms, and NFT marketplaces.
Low gas fees have led to an uptick in transaction volumes for DeFi and NFT projects, ranging from 15% to 20%, indicating a potential return of smaller, price-sensitive users who were previously priced out during periods of network congestion.
Data from Strategic Eth Reserve shows BitMine as the leading institution holding Ethereum tokens under its reserve strategy. BitMine’s current holdings stand at 3.03 million ETH, making it the largest corporate holder of Ether.
SharpLink, another institutional investor, recently added 39,000 ETH to its holdings, pushing its total to 838.73K ETH. These accumulation trends suggest that large entities increasingly view Ethereum as a utility network and a long-term store of digital value.
According to CoinMarketCap data, the current price of the Ether token is $3,974.41, representing a 2.77% drop at the time of publication. The token market cap has also dropped to $479.99 billion, with an average 24-hour volume of $57.56 billion, representing a 1.15% drop at the time of publication.
