Ethereum Shatters 2021 Records: 2.2M Daily Transactions, Fees Drop 99%
Network utility hits a decade-high 2.23 million daily transactions while gas fees plummet to $0.21, creating a massive divergence from stagnant price action.
Ethereum has decoupled price from utility in a way not seen since the 2018 bear market. On December 29, the network processed a historic 2.23 million transactions in a single day, obliterating the previous ceiling set during the 2021 NFT mania. While the Etherscan data confirms a new throughput ceiling, the 7-day moving average also climbed to an all-time high of 1.87 million, signaling sustained demand rather than a fleeting stress test.
The Fee Anomaly
The most jarring metric isn’t the volume; it’s the cost. During the 2021 peak, a similar load would have spiked gas fees to $200. This week, the average transaction settled for approximately $0.21. The divergence is a direct receipt for the 2025 Pectra and Fusaka upgrades, which expanded block capacity and optimized data blobs for Layer-2 offloading.
Ethereum processed 2.23M transactions with no congestion and fees under $0.30. The ‘Global Computer’ is finally affordable.
Despite the utility explosion, ETH price action remains muted, trading sideways at $3,100 (+1.7%) as the market digests the supply shock.
Silent Builder Boom
Under the hood, infrastructure growth is outpacing user adoption. Data from Token Terminal reveals that 8.7 million smart contracts were deployed in Q4 2025 alone, the highest quarterly figure on record. This represents a massive spike in developer activity, likely driven by the reduced deployment costs on the upgraded mainnet.
Staking Flows Flip Positive
Institutional flows corroborate the fundamental strength. For the first time in six months, the validator entry queue has flipped the exit queue. As of January 2, approximately 745,000 ETH sits in the entry queue compared to just 360,000 ETH waiting to exit. Large entities, including BitMine, have effectively locked nearly $2 billion in capital over the last 96 hours, removing it from circulating supply.
