Ethereum just posted its largest wave of first-time users on record. It signals that demand for on-chain activity has expanded beyond the last cycle’s speculative bursts.
Ethereum New Addresses Top 2018’s ICO-Era Peak
Ethereum’s 30-day “new addresses” count—which refers to wallets that interacted with the ETH asset for the first time within the last 30 days—surged to a fresh all-time high in mid-January, according to on-chain data resource Glassnode.
On Jan 14, more than 8.9 million addresses interacted with ETH for the first time, setting a new record. The prior peak came during the initial coin offering boom, when roughly 7 million addresses hit the network around January 2018 as speculative demand pushed users on-chain.
The latest expansion aligned with broad-based on-chain participation rather than a single fundraising narrative. Traders, users, and apps pulled activity forward across multiple categories, and the data captured that breadth through a record-setting intake of first-time ETH interactors.
Stablecoins and RWAs Helped Drive Organic Demand
Ethereum’s stablecoin footprint strengthened the organic demand case. Data from GrowThePie showedEthereum mainnet stablecoin supply reaching about $173.49 billion in January 2026, up 46% over the past year.
The same dataset placed the comparable stablecoin figure near $110,000 when Ethereum last set its new-address record in January 2018, underscoring how much the on-chain economy matured since the ICO era.
Tokenized real-world assets added another leg. RWA.xyz data showedEthereum hosting about $12.47 billion worth of RWAs on its core chain, out of roughly $21.35 billion spread across tracked blockchains.
That positioning gave Ethereum a large share of the sector’s settlement and custody activity, which typically requires repeated on-chain interactions rather than one-off speculation.
The number of distinct wallet addresses that actively interacted with a blockchain rose 55% over the past year. “Active” addresses include wallets that initiated transactions or executed smart contract calls, basic actions that reflect real usage.
A surge in stablecoin settlement, expanding real-world asset tokenization, and a year-over-year jump in active on-chain participation explained why Ethereum’s first-time user count hit records in January 2026.
