Ethereum processed a record number of transactions, according to Token Terminal data. User costs fell to their lowest levels on record simultaneously.
Ethereum Fees Down 99.60% in a Year
As of January, the weekly transaction count on the Ethereum chain had exceeded 12 million compared to around 7 million a year ago. At the same time, the median transaction fee remained below $0.02 compared to around $5 a year ago, a 99.60% decline
That shows Ethereum users collectively executed more transfers, swaps, and contract interactions than ever before, but the “typical” fee paid to get included in a block was just a few cents.
Historically, Ethereum activity and fees tended to rise in tandem during periods of high demand.
That dynamic was most visible in the 2021–2022 cycle. Median fees repeatedly spiked into double digits and briefly approached the chart’s upper range near $25–$30.
That reflected severe congestion: when too many people competed for limited block space, users had to bid higher to get processed faster.
This indicates Ethereum’s L1 was able to accommodate a larger volume of on-chain actions without triggering the kind of fee pressure that defined prior bull-market surges.
What’s Driving Ethereum Fees Lower?
Fees dropped because Ethereum isn’t “crowded” the way it was in 2021–2022, due to massive efforts to scale Ethereum.
After the Dencun upgrade, many transactions moved to layer-2 networks (like Arbitrum/Base), which bundle lots of user activity and then post a summary to Ethereum. That summary became cheaper to publish (via “blobs,” EIP-4844), so L2s put less strain on Ethereum’s limited block space.
So even with high activity, the line stayed shorter, and the typical fee stayed near the floor.
Ethereum’s on-chain activity rose primarily due to the rising deployment of tokenized assets, including stablecoins. RWA.xyz data showedEthereum hosting about $12.47 billion worth of RWAs on its core chain compared to around $6 billion a year ago.
