According to Santiment data, Ethena recorded 5,057 daily active addresses on June 18, its highest level since November 2025, a seven-month peak. On the same day, new wallet creation reached 2,968, the strongest network-growth reading since April 2024, a 26-month high. At the time of the spike, ENA was trading near $0.088, still close to multi-month lows despite the sudden jump in activity.
The detail that stands out is not the address count on its own. It is that both metrics moved together: existing users became more active while new users entered the ecosystem at the same time. Many on-chain spikes are driven by current holders simply shuffling funds between wallets. Here, active addresses and fresh wallet creation surged in tandem, which can point to genuine user expansion rather than internal transfers.
The strongest network expansions in crypto have historically shared a pattern: existing users step up activity, new users keep arriving, and price has not yet caught up. That sequence never guarantees a rally, but it can signal that network fundamentals are improving before market sentiment reflects it.
Ethena fits that shape unusually well right now. ENA’s price sits near the low end of a prolonged downtrend while user activity has suddenly accelerated. The open question is whether the June 18 reading was a one-day anomaly, a campaign-driven blip, or the start of sustained growth. If active addresses and wallet creation stay elevated over the coming weeks, the surge starts to look less like noise and more like renewed ecosystem interest.
Data suggests a direct correlation between Ethena’s integration into the Avalanche Payments Collective and the 26-month high in new wallet creation. Institutional participation from firms like Franklin Templeton and Anchorage Digital suggests this may mark a shift toward utility-driven settlement rather than speculative yield-chasing.
Today, we’re launching the Avalanche Payments Collective.
Founding participants include Franklin Templeton, VanEck, Anchorage Digital, Paxos, Agora, Ethena, Rain, Axiym, Tassat, and others spanning the payments stack.
The Collective brings together companies spanning… pic.twitter.com/RHSJthxA9A
— Avalanche🔺 (@avax) June 18, 2026
Ethena’s inclusion is notable because of what it does. The project is named specifically among the stablecoin members enabling round-the-clock settlement, which places it in the part of the stack meant to move real value rather than just generate yield. That reframes the address surge: rather than another DeFi partnership, this is positioning within real-world payment rails, a sector many investors see as a driver of the next phase of crypto adoption.
The market has not priced in any of this yet. ENA still trades below its 50-day simple moving average near $0.10 on the daily chart from TradingView, below its 100-day SMA around $0.1002, and well under its 200-day SMA at roughly $0.1391. At about $0.0875 at the time of writing, the technical structure could be described firmly bearish despite the improving network metrics.
That gap is the heart of the story. Network activity and a fresh institutional alignment are pointing one way, while price continues to trade near lower levels. It is the kind of divergence that resolves eventually, either fundamentals drag price up, or weak price action proves the activity was a passing spike.
Beyond the activity spike, governance attention is turning to a proposed protocol “fee switch.” According to Ethena’s March and April 2026 governance update, the Risk Committee has parameter work underway toward directing a share of protocol revenue to ENA stakeholders. If it advances through governance, the change would mark a meaningful shift, moving ENA from a primarily governance-focused token toward one that captures a portion of protocol revenue.
The one-day spikes can mislead. Sustainable trends need follow-through, and a single elevated reading, even a 26-month high, does not by itself make a recovery. If active users and new wallet creation fade over the next days and weeks, the signal could prove temporary and leave little mark on price.
The Avalanche Payments Collective strengthens the case that something real is happening, but its payoff, if any, would unfold over months, not days. For now, the spike is an early signal worth tracking, not confirmation of a turn.
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