The busiest quarter in history! In the first quarter of 2026, Ethereum's transaction count exceeded 200 million. Why hasn't the price kept up?

Ethereum’s performance in the first quarter of 2026 was strong. Mainnet transaction volume first surpassed the 200 million mark, reaching an all-time high. Even though on-chain activity has been bustling thanks to the rapid growth of Layer 2 and stablecoins, the coin price has diverged from the fundamentals.

This year’s first quarter brought a standout performance for Ethereum. The heat of on-chain activity created the busiest quarter on record, yet even with a rebound in fundamentals, the coin price has still shown no clear improvement—leaving many investors disappointed. After a three-year absence, this powerful return—does it herald the start of the next surge cycle, or is there a hidden cause for concern?

According to the latest statistics from blockchain data platform Artemis, in the first quarter of 2026, the Ethereum mainnet processed as many as 200.4 million transactions, marking the first time in a single quarter that it surpassed 200 million. Looking back at 2023, Ethereum’s quarterly transaction volume once fell to 90 million; in 2024, it mostly hovered between 100 million and 120 million.

This wave of on-chain activity recovery for Ethereum actually began quietly in mid-2025 and has been growing steadily each quarter. By this year’s first quarter, transaction volume jumped 43% from the 145 million in the fourth quarter of last year, pulling Ethereum up in a beautiful “U-shaped growth curve” from the 2023 low.

However, paradoxically, the market’s fundamental frenzy has not been reflected in the coin price. Ether currently trades around $2,355, a drop of more than 50% from the all-time high near $5,000 that it approached in August last year. This kind of strong divergence may provide a potential setup opportunity for investors who are skilled at extracting value from fundamentals.

When tracing the driving force behind the explosion in transaction flows, credit mainly goes to “Layer 2 scaling solutions.” At present, the two largest Layer 2 networks in the market are Base and Arbitrum. Users flock to these platforms in pursuit of low transaction fees, and ultimately these trading activities are reflected on Ethereum mainnet data in the form of “settlements” and “cross-chain bridges.”

Another major contributor is stablecoins. According to data platform Token Terminal, the total stablecoin supply on Ethereum has reached a historical high of $180 billion, accounting for about 60% of the global stablecoin market.

That said, some analysts point out the risks: the popularity of Layer 2 may be masking concerns about declining mainnet transaction fee revenue. Since Ethereum completed the “KunKun upgrade (Dencun upgrade)” and significantly reduced the data storage costs for Layer 2, the fees Ethereum earns per transaction have fallen far short of what they used to be. In other words, even if on-chain activity increases sharply, it cannot directly translate into more token “burn” volumes as in the past, making it difficult to directly lift the coin price.

Taking a broader view, Ethereum’s on-chain activity has already completed a multi-year period of recovery, and historically this kind of recovery usually comes ahead of price movements.

As for whether Ethereum’s record-breaking performance in this year’s first quarter is the starting point for the next big move, or a signal that a trading range has topped out, the answer will depend on whether the number of transactions in the second quarter can continue to stay at the 200 million level. More importantly, this growth momentum must come from new “real users,” not from the false prosperity created by bot activity.

• This article is reprinted with permission from: 《BlockBeats》
• Original title: 《The Busiest Quarter Ever! Ethereum’s Q1 Transaction Count Breaks 200 Million—Why Hasn’t the Coin Price Kept Up?》
• Original author: Block Sister MEL