Ethereum activity doubles as first time users drive new address surge, Glassnode
Ethereum saw a surge of first time addresses interacting with the network over the past month, with Glassnode data showing activity retention rising from a little over 4 million to about 8 million addresses over the last 30 days.
In a post published on 15 January 2026, Glassnode wrote that the month over month jump in the newest cohort points to more wallets using Ethereum for the first time, rather than the increase being driven only by existing participants. Activity retention is used to track whether addresses remain active over time.
Onchain metrics tracked elsewhere also moved higher. Etherscan data show the number of active Ethereum addresses climbed from roughly 410,000 around the same period last year to more than 1 million on 15 January 2026. Glassnode and other market trackers reported that daily Ethereum transactions reached an all time high of about 2.8 million on 15 January 2026, up about 125% from a year earlier.
Some market commentators linked the higher transaction count to stablecoin usage and shifting execution to layer 2 networks. Milk Road wrote on 15 January 2026 that stablecoin activity on Ethereum increased while fees declined, attributing the change to more transactions being executed on layer 2 networks with settlement anchored on Ethereum mainnet.
Ether traded around $3,300 in early trading on 16 January 2026 after touching about $3,400 on 14 January 2026, according to market data cited in industry reports.
As GNcrypto previously noted, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned on 11 January 2026 that core design risks for decentralized stablecoins remain unresolved, pointing to reliance on price feeds and oracle security, governance attack surfaces, and staking or yield incentives that can break under adversarial conditions and undermine peg stability.
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