Ethereum User Retention Doubles

Key Notes

• Ethereum’s month-over-month activity retention nearly doubled, with new active addresses rising from 4M to 8M.
• Daily transaction counts hit a record 2.8 million, a 125% increase year-over-year.
• Growth is attributed to significantly lower transaction fees and surging stablecoin usage, facilitated by Layer-2 networks.

Ethereum’s user base is exhibiting its stickiest behavior in years, with Month-over-Month Activity Retention nearly doubling in the last 30 days.

Data from Glassnode confirms the network added roughly 4 million new active addresses this month, bringing the monthly total to 8 million. Unlike previous spikes driven by airdrop farming, this surge coincides with a doubling in retention rates for the “New” cohort.

ETH

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The Data: Stickiness over Speculation

The breakdown from on-chain analytics providers highlights a fundamental shift:

• Active addresses surged from ~410,000 to >1 million year-over-year (Etherscan).
• Daily throughput hit a record 2.8 million transactions, a 125% YoY increase.

Glassnode wrote:

“Ethereum’s Month-over-Month Activity Retention shows a sharp spike in the ‘New’ cohort, indicating a surge in first-time interacting addresses over the past 30 days.”

Execution vs. Settlement

The volume spike paradoxically correlates with lower average fees. This validates the roadmap efficacy. Mainnet is successfully offloading execution to Layer-2s (Arbitrum, Base, Optimism) while capturing value through final settlement and stablecoin transfers.

The 2.8 million daily transaction figure reflects the capacity expansion from the recent Fusaka upgrade, which increased block sizes by roughly 33%.

Related article: Ethereum Price Strengthens Amid Shifts in Crypto MarketConfidence around Ethereum is improving, with indicators pointing to higher prices fueled by capital inflows into ETFs, stablecoins, and crypto protocols. Staking now locks over 50% of Ether’s total supply. Some market observers, however, note a disconnect between strong on-chain metrics and price action. They reflect skepticism about its value accrual model and macroeconomic headwinds.

The Institutional Take

For desk traders, the “New Address” count is usually a vanity metric often polluted by Sybils. The alpha here is the retention doubling.

High retention in a low-fee environment suggests these are actual users (likely interacting via stablecoins or DeFi front-ends) rather than bot nets, which typically exhibit high churn. If this cohort sustains activity through Q1, re-rate ETH’s valuation models to weight “network utility” higher than “deflationary supply,” especially as L2 blob revenue stabilizes.

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