Ethereum’s Q2 2026 data paints a mixed picture for the network. Transaction volumes reached a record high, fees increased and ETH burning accelerated, but monthly active users fell 30%. The contrast is raising fresh questions about the strength and breadth of Ethereum’s adoption.
Ethereum’s layer-1 blockchain processed 203.9 million transactions in the second quarter, a 68.4% increase from the same period last year. Average throughput also reached a record 25.9 transactions per second. ETH’s price has not mirrored the network’s activity, with the token recently trading at $2,474.27, down 1.5% over the previous 24 hours.
The figures suggest that Ethereum is handling substantially more transactions despite having fewer distinct active participants. This could mean that a greater portion of network activity is being generated by high-frequency users, protocols, automated systems and infrastructure providers rather than by an expanding retail user base.
As a result, transaction growth alone may offer a less reliable measure of Ethereum’s broader adoption.
Fees and ETH Burn Rise Alongside Network Activity
Ethereum’s second-quarter performance extended beyond its transaction count. Onchain fees increased 31.6% to $52.5 million, while ETH burn revenue surged 112% to $17.1 million. Burn revenue represents the portion of transaction fees that is permanently removed from Ethereum’s circulating supply.
Higher fees and increased ETH burning suggest that transactions carried greater economic value than they did a year earlier, even though fewer active wallets were participating.
Staking also reached a new milestone. The percentage of ETH staked rose to 32%, while the number of addresses holding ETH climbed to an all-time high of 312.1 million.
Ethereum also continued to strengthen its position in tokenized assets. Tokenized assets on the network averaged approximately $203.1 billion during Q2, including around $176.8 billion in stablecoins and $20.8 billion in tokenized funds.
The numbers reinforce Ethereum’s role as a settlement layer for digital assets, even as the decline in active users raises questions about how widely that activity is distributed.
Similar trends are emerging elsewhere across the Ethereum ecosystem, with institutional accumulation becoming more prominent and activity from other networks increasingly moving onto Ethereum’s base layer. Together, these developments point toward a network increasingly supported by institutional, protocol and infrastructure activity.
Ethereum’s Record Activity Comes With a User Decline
The Q2 figures continue a pattern that emerged earlier in 2026. Research citing Token Terminal data shows Ethereum recorded 200.4 million layer-1 transactions in Q1, while average throughput was approximately 25.78 TPS.
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