Ethereum usage hits record high: daily transactions exceed 2.1 million, transaction fees drop to multi-year lows

January 19 News, as the second-largest blockchain network globally, Ethereum has recently set new records in both active usage and network efficiency. On-chain data shows that Ethereum’s daily transaction volume has surpassed the historical peak of the previous bull cycle, while the average transaction fee has significantly decreased, reaching lows in recent years. The overall network performance has markedly improved.

According to statistics from the open-source blockchain explorer Blockscout, the average daily transaction volume on Ethereum has increased by approximately 14% over the past two weeks, rising from 1.8 million to 2.1 million transactions, hitting a new all-time high. Concurrently, the gas costs have continued to decline, further enhancing Ethereum’s competitiveness in high-frequency scenarios such as payments and stablecoin transfers.

Dosh, Head of Business Development and Growth at Blockscout, stated that the simultaneous increase in throughput and decrease in costs reflect the phased success of Ethereum’s modular scaling approach, especially with EIP-4844 and subsequent blob capacity upgrades. These upgrades enable Layer 2 networks to publish data to the mainnet at lower costs while maintaining verifiability. This structural change provides direct data support for topics like “Ethereum scalability improvements” and “reasons for Ethereum fee reductions.”

From a usage perspective, the current on-chain activity mainly comes from stablecoin transfers and payment scenarios, with Tether’s USDT transaction volume approximately twice that of Circle’s USDC. The low gas environment is believed to facilitate more Ethereum-based payment integrations, enhancing its long-term appeal as a settlement layer.

On the staking layer, the network also signals stability. Data shows that about 30% of Ethereum is staked, and the validator exit queue has dropped to zero, indicating no current pressure for validator exits. Meanwhile, approximately 2.6 million ETH are queued for staking, reaching a new high since July 2023, seen as an important indicator of renewed validator confidence.

However, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently issued a reminder, emphasizing that the long-term health of the protocol layer depends not only on scaling capacity but also on controlling protocol complexity to avoid excessive bloat to meet specific needs. Dosh views this as a forward-looking governance warning. Current data suggests that Ethereum has a solid foundation for “sustainable scalability,” but ongoing simplification is also necessary to maintain long-term resilience and flexibility.