Ethereum mainnet has seen a sharp rise in daily active addresses, overtaking the leading layer-2 scaling blockchains. Network activity on Ethereum has surged, with daily active addresses reaching nearly 1 million, surpassing popular layer-2 networks like Arbitrum and OP Mainnet. This surge is largely attributed to the reduced gas fees following Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade in December.
Ethereum has experienced a resurgence in network activity, with daily active addresses recently climbing to 1.3 million on January 16. Though the number has slightly decreased since, Ethereum still maintains an average of 945,000 active addresses per day. This marks a clear dominance over all layer-2 networks, including Base Chain and Arbitrum One.
Data from Token Terminal indicates that Ethereum is outpacing all major layer-2 networks in terms of daily activity. Layer-2 solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism currently hold a combined total value of $45 billion, though their activity has dipped by 17% in the past year. This contrasts with Ethereum’s rising network engagement, driven in part by cheaper gas fees.
Return to Mainnet@ethereum L1 outranks all leading L2s in terms of daily active addresses.
Interesting. pic.twitter.com/Nk7O5adWA5
— Token Terminal
(@tokenterminal) January 22, 2026
The recent spike in Ethereum’s network activity may not be entirely organic. Security experts have raised concerns that some of this increase is due to address poisoning attacks. According to Andrey Sergeenkov, a prominent security researcher, scammers are exploiting the low fees to send small transactions from wallet addresses resembling legitimate ones.
This malicious activity has been enabled by the current state of low gas fees, making it more affordable for attackers to spam the network. Blockchain security firm Cyvers has pointed out that address poisoning is not just a marginal factor but a major contributor to the rise in Ethereum’s transaction volume. Their analysis suggests that a significant portion of the surge is linked to these fraudulent campaigns.
Despite the potential for malicious activity, Ethereum remains the dominant blockchain for asset tokenization. ARK Invest has confirmed that Ethereum’s assets have now surpassed $400 billion. It also leads in the tokenization of stablecoins, controlling 56% of the stablecoin market on-chain.
Tokenized real-world assets on Ethereum represent 66% of the total when including layer-2 networks. The market for these tokenized assets is projected to reach over $11 trillion by 2030, reinforcing Ethereum’s crucial role in on-chain asset management.
The post Ethereum Dominates Daily Active Addresses, Overtaking Layer-2s appeared first on CoinCentral.
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