Ethereum closed December with the price stalling in the range seen around the $3,000 mark, but the activity of its network rose to record highs. The token’s price collapsed following a high price, but according to on-chain statistics, there was a suspicious increase in usage. One of the most remarkable events of the month was the discrepancy between soft price action and record network activity.
CryptoQuant had indicated a significant increase in Ethereum transactions in the last days of December. Transfers were more than 2.1 million a day. This was the highest mark since 2023. It also indicated a sudden surge in network activity when the market was still pressured.
Source: CryptoQuant
Etherscan data verified this trend. Ethereum has made 2,230,801 transactions within a day. This was the largest number of days in the 10-year history of the network. The rise occurred when ETH was trading around $2,900, following a significant decline after reaching its previous highs.
Ethereum Activity Spike Highlights Efficient Network Conditions
The increase in transactions also indicated high ETH circulation. This implied that positioning among the holders might have been taking certain strategies. The trend revealed that there was a distinct separation of price action and on-chain volume.
Investor BMNR Bullz highlighted the power of the network at the time of the surge. According to him, the fees were maintained at under $0.01. He stated that finality was good and nothing indicated congestion in the network. His comments highlighted that by improving scaling, it was possible to use Ethereum as a base layer again.
A CryptoQuant analyst suggested that downtrend panic selling could be indicated by increased transaction spikes. However, they may also reveal positive network growth in case they are accompanied by good fundamentals. Recent data suggested that the overall indicator was neutral to marginally positive when considering other on-chain metrics.
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Ecosystem Expansion Drives Higher Ethereum Demand
Among these indicators was the implementation of new smart contracts. By the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, Ethereum had deployed over 8.7 million contracts. It was the largest quarterly record. It also indicated a fast increase in the ecosystem’s activity.
Source: Token Terminal
The developers were still using Ethereum as a settlement layer. The real-world asset tokenization, stablecoin flows, and infrastructure development fueled growth. These regions led to an increase in the demand to transfer ETH.
Staking was another significant measure. On the last day of the month, there were approximately 890,000 ETH in the entry queue that had been validated. The staking of Bitmine could have helped push the numbers up. The timing was corresponding to the high network transfers.
Source: Validator Queue
The price of ETH was close to $3,000 even though the on-chain indicators were high. Analysts noted that U.S. investors continued to exert selling pressure on the market. Record activity coupled with stagnation in pricing put Ethereum in a critical state going into the new year.
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