Ethereum’s wallet surge continues
Ethereum is seeing something interesting happening with wallet creation. Over the past week, the network recorded about 327,100 new Ether wallets being created each day. That’s a lot of new addresses. But Sunday was particularly striking—roughly 393,600 wallets were created in a single day. That’s the largest daily increase ever recorded for Ethereum, which makes me think something’s shifting in how people interact with the network.
This activity comes at a time when the broader crypto market is showing some strength. The total market cap rose by more than 4% in the last 24 hours, hitting around $3.25 trillion. Ether’s price has jumped by over 7% in the past month, while Bitcoin managed to regain the $95,000 level. It’s not exactly a bull run, but there’s definitely movement happening.
The fee reduction effect
The sudden increase in ETH wallets seems connected to a protocol upgrade that rolled out in early December. The Fusaka upgrade changed how data gets handled on the network. What it did, essentially, was lower costs for layer two systems to post information back to Ethereum. This move made transactions cheaper and smoother for users. Average gas costs fell to 0.051 Gwei, which is quite low by historical standards.
When fees drop, activity tends to pick up. That’s what we’re seeing here. Santiment data shows stablecoin transfers on Ethereum reached record levels late last year, with total volumes hitting about $8 trillion in the fourth quarter. Payments and settlement flows at that scale often require new wallets. It suggests users were accumulating ETH when prices dipped, which eventually supported the address growth.
New users and shifting patterns
Santiment’s analysis points to trends from late December into January showing new users entering the ecosystem. But here’s the thing—wallets are being created as people explore decentralized finance games and NFT-related applications. Seasonal factors might have played a role too. Crypto markets often see renewed activity around the turn of the year as traders and developers reset their strategies.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index shows investor sentiment has turned “Neutral” after spending weeks in “Fear” territory. Ether had struggled to hold above $3,300 multiple times over the past two months, but the recent push helped it overcome that barrier. Ethereum’s price surged almost 8% in the last 24 hours, trading around $3,348 at the time of writing.
Mixed signals in activity
Interestingly, activity across decentralized applications seems to be cooling down somewhat. DefiLlama data shows aggregate DEX volumes over the past two weeks totaled $150.4 billion. That’s a sharp dip from the $340 billion record set in January 2025. Ethereum’s seven-day DEX volumes have hovered near $9 billion, well below the $27.8 billion peak from October.
Derivatives markets also point to calmer conditions. Thirty-day implied volatility measures tied to Bitcoin and Ether have declined. These indicators reflect expectations for price swings, and lower readings suggest traders are anticipating reduced near-term movement. This comes despite ongoing geopolitical risks and shifts in ETF flows.
At the same time, institutional interest appears to be growing. SharpLink Gaming has expanded its exposure to Ethereum, accumulating more than 865,000 ETH. The stake was valued at about $2.75 billion as of Tuesday. Last week, the company deployed $170 million worth of ether on the Linea layer two network.
What I find interesting is the contrast between record wallet creation and somewhat cooling DEX activity. It suggests new users might be entering, but they’re not necessarily trading heavily yet. Perhaps they’re exploring, setting up wallets in anticipation of future activity, or simply holding assets. The lower fees definitely seem to be removing barriers to entry, which could have longer-term implications for network growth.
