December confirmed a structural shift in blockchain economics. The biggest networks processed extra transactions however earned much less from fees. Nansen data reveals that elevated throughput and scaling have began to work as anticipated.
Data on addresses, transactions, and fees in blockchains over the previous 30 days.
A number of networks — Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Avalanche — recorded month-over-month transaction development amid a pointy decline in payment revenue. This means lowered stress on blockspace and an absence of overheating at the same time as exercise will increase.
Ethereum and L2s present new dynamics
Ethereum elevated the variety of transactions by 16%, whereas payment revenue fell by 57%. Polygon showed an analogous image. Transactions grew by 82%, and fees dropped by 47%. For Arbitrum and Avalanche, the hole between exercise and revenue was no much less noticeable.
Bitcoin, Tron, and TON showed extra reasonable transaction development — from 0.6% to 7.9%. However even there, fees decreased, confirming the general pattern towards cheaper community utilization.
Scaling reduces competitors for blockspace
The important thing purpose is upgrades. On the finish of November, Ethereum elevated the fuel restrict per block to 60 million, permitting extra operations to suit and decreasing competitors. In December, the impact was amplified by the Fusaka improve and the introduction of PeerDAS. This sharply expanded data availability and lowered whole prices for rollups.
Polygon took the identical strategy. The Madhugiri laborious fork lowered consensus time to at least one second and elevated execution predictability. The community centered on stablecoins and real-world asset tokenization. These situations present excessive transaction turnover however don’t create a value battle for block inclusion.
Arbitrum continues to profit from the rollup mannequin. Transactions are executed off Ethereum, and compressed data is despatched to the primary community. This permits quantity to develop with out a proportional improve in fees and smooths out value volatility.
In response to Nansen, Avalanche is rising as a result of secure funds, institutional settlements, and client companies — from tickets to video games. Such situations load the community by quantity, however not by urgency, which retains fees low.
Not all networks maintained exercise
The image was uneven. Some networks showed a simultaneous drop in each transactions and fees. BNB Chain lowered the variety of operations by 79%, and payment revenue by 14%. Base and HyperEVM confronted a fair sharper decline in exercise, indicating a seasonal cooling of curiosity.
Solana remained the busiest community in absolute phrases — about 1.7 billion transactions in the course of the interval. However right here too, a 21% lower was recorded, and payment revenue fell by 17%. This displays a basic market pause.
What’s subsequent?
December showed that blockchains have entered a brand new part. Elevated exercise not means increased fees. Scaling, rollups, and execution optimization cut back prices and take away bottlenecks. For customers, this implies cheaper community utilization. For buyers and builders, it’s a sign that protocol economics are regularly shifting from blockspace shortage to competing for real-world use circumstances.
Learn extra: Treasury firms and ETFs amassed virtually 5% of Solana’s provide in 2025
