Foreign media, citing Etherealize's interpretation of Token Terminal data, reported that in the first quarter of 2026, Ethereum saw user activity and on-chain transactions continue to grow while fees declined. The article argues that this reflects the effectiveness of Ethereum's recent scaling strategy, which trades lower usage costs for higher network activity.
Divergence among multiple indicators in the first quarter
Looking at the quarterly data, Ethereum ecosystem funding and transaction activity declined slightly compared to the previous quarter, but still maintained year-over-year growth. Total value locked was $316.2 billion, down 11% quarter-over-quarter but up 22.8% year-over-year; active lending volume was $21.8 billion, down 16.6% quarter-over-quarter but up 39% year-over-year.
Trading volume was $134.5 billion, a 24% decrease quarter-over-quarter; ecosystem fee revenue was $2 billion, a 16.9% decrease quarter-over-quarter. Meanwhile, the total market capitalization of tokenized assets reached $203.4 billion, a 42.9% year-over-year increase, of which stablecoins accounted for $178.9 billion.
Monthly active users hit a new high
The article mentions that Ethereum's monthly active users rose to 13.2 million in the first quarter, a 53.5% increase from the previous quarter and nearly 86% year-over-year, setting a new record. During the same period, the number of on-chain transactions reached 200.4 million, and network throughput rose to 25.78 transactions per second.
In contrast to the increase in activity, Layer 1 fees continued to decline. Ethereum mainnet fees fell to $39.9 million in the first quarter, a decrease of nearly 48% from the previous quarter. The article attributes this change to the higher data capacity and lower transaction costs resulting from network upgrades.
Tokenized assets account for the largest proportion
According to the data cited in the article, Ethereum currently holds 61.8% of the stablecoin share, 73% of the tokenized fund share, and 84% of the tokenized commodity share, as well as 79.2% of the active DeFi lending share, and remains the main carrier network for tokenized assets.
The article mentions that stablecoins remain the largest category, mainly driven by USDT and USDC; the growth of tokenized funds is related to the product development of institutions such as BlackRock, while tokenized gold products have driven the rapid expansion of the tokenized commodity market.
The organization continues to launch products
The article also mentions that several traditional financial institutions have recently continued to launch products in the Ethereum-related field, including BlackRock's new tokenized fund, JPMorgan Chase's second tokenized money market fund, and Fidelity International's tokenized liquidity fund.
Regarding future network plans, the article mentions that the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade is expected to more than triple the current gas limit. A longer-term roadmap points to achieving 10,000 TPS and faster final confirmation speeds by 2029.
