Ethereum’s main network averaged a record 2.16 million daily transactions in 2026, with 899,000 daily active addresses, according to the data cited in the report. A separate research tally for January through October put the mainnet average at about 2.17 million transactions a day, up 54% from the prior year. The growth is easy to see. What is less simple is what it means for the network and its holders.
Cheaper transactions, fewer fee dollars
The clearest driver is cost. Median transaction fees fell from 35 cents to 3.5 cents over the period, a tenfold drop. That helped pull more activity onto the base chain, but it also cut into fee revenue. Total mainnet fees came to roughly 67,665 ETH from January to October, down about 58% year over year. The research links that lower fee take to net growth in ETH supply, even while transaction counts climbed. In other words, more use did not translate into more money for the network in the same way it once did.
Most traffic now runs on layer-2s
Layer-2 networks, separate chains that bundle transactions and settle them back to Ethereum, averaged 23.3 million daily transactions over the same stretch. Combined, the wider Ethereum network handled about 25 million daily transactions. The mainnet still matters as a settlement layer, perhaps more than ever, but most day-to-day traffic now runs on chains built on top of it. That has been the plan for years. The 2026 numbers show it working, at least on the activity side.
Stablecoins carry the load
Stablecoins were a major engine of mainnet growth. Transfers on Ethereum’s main chain reached $25.8 trillion from January to October, up 61% year over year. That points to Ethereum becoming core infrastructure for dollar-denominated settlement. It also raises a question about where value ends up. If stablecoin issuers and layer-2 networks capture much of the benefit, mainnet volume alone may not be enough.
Momentum has cooled recently. In late October and early November, daily mainnet activity was around 1.8 million transactions, with about 535,000 daily active addresses. Both are below the year’s averages. That could be a short pause or a sign that the record pace is easing. For ETH holders, the fight is less about whether Ethereum gets used and more about where value is captured: on the base chain, on layer-2s, or by the stablecoin issuers moving trillions across them.
