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Ryan Moore 
Record activity, cheap fees, and returning stakers close out a big year for the network
Ethereum wrapped up 2025 on a strong note, quietly hitting a milestone that says a lot about where the network is headed. On December 29, Ethereum processed more than 2.23 million transactions in a single day, the highest daily total it’s ever seen. What makes that number interesting isn’t just the scale, but the fact that it happened without fees spiking or the network grinding to a halt.
Data from Etherscan shows the new all-time high beating previous peaks by a wide margin. In past cycles, that kind of activity would usually mean painful congestion and sky-high gas fees. This time, Ethereum handled it smoothly, which hints that years of scaling work are finally paying off.
A big reason for the jump is a pair of upgrades that rolled out in 2025. The Pectra upgrade in May focused on making validators more efficient and improving how Ethereum interacts with Layer-2 networks. Then in early December, the Fusaka upgrade pushed things further by expanding block capacity by about a third and introducing PeerDAS, a smarter way for nodes to verify large chunks of data without downloading everything.
That matters because Ethereum today is less about direct user transactions and more about acting as a settlement layer. Most activity now happens on Layer-2 networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base. Fusaka’s improvements to data “blobs” made it cheaper and easier for those rollups to post data back to Ethereum, which helps explain both the higher transaction count and the lower fees.
Stakers are coming back
At the same time, Ethereum’s staking picture has quietly improved. For the first time in about six months, more ETH is lining up to be staked than to exit. Around 740,000 ETH is currently waiting in the entry queue, compared with roughly 350,000 to 370,000 ETH queued for withdrawal.
That shift suggests growing confidence from validators and long-term holders. Staking means locking up ETH to secure the network, so rising inflows usually point to people feeling more comfortable committing their capital. Some of that momentum appears to be coming from institutions, including large deposits from players like BitMine, which has staked over a billion dollars’ worth of ETH in recent months.
Pectra helped here too by making staking a bit smoother, reducing activation delays and lowering friction for new validators joining the network.
Cheap fees change everything
Maybe the most noticeable change for everyday users is how inexpensive Ethereum has become. Around the time the transaction record was set, average mainnet fees were sitting near $0.17. That’s a massive contrast to earlier years, when busy periods could push fees well into the double or even triple digits.
Lower fees tend to create a virtuous cycle. When it’s cheap to transact, people use the network more. More usage tests the system, and in this case, Ethereum held up just fine. Simple transfers and more complex smart contract interactions now cost cents, not dollars.
At the time of writing, ETH was trading close to $2,995, according to CoinMarketCap. Price aside, the bigger story is structural. Ethereum is showing it can handle real volume, keep costs low, and attract stakers at the same time. That combination makes it feel less like an experiment and more like the dependable base layer it’s been trying to become for years.
About the Author
David Rich 
John Wood 
Timothy Young