Despite a surge in on-chain activity, Ethereum gas fees remain near historic lows — a sign of the network’s growing scalability and readiness for real-world applications.
According to data from Milkroad, average transaction fees on Ethereum have held steady at around 0.16 gwei, or roughly $0.01 per transaction. Token swaps cost about $0.15, while NFT sales average around $0.27 — levels that would have been unthinkable during previous cycles of heavy network demand.
The contrast highlights how far Ethereum’s infrastructure has come. In earlier bull markets, spikes in user activity routinely sent fees skyrocketing, drawing criticism from developers and users alike. Now, thanks to efficiency gains and widespread adoption of Layer-2 scaling networks, Ethereum’s mainnet is handling high traffic without the punishing costs that once defined it.
Ethereum network activity is on the rise once again, with daily transactions climbing to 1.6 million on Tuesday — the highest level in nearly a month. The last time activity reached similar levels was in early October, just before the record-breaking $19 billion market liquidation event.
Active Ethereum addresses have also climbed in tandem with transaction growth, hitting a monthly peak of 695,872 on Saturday, according to data from crypto intelligence firm Nansen.
The surge in activity comes as Ethereum gas fees remain near record lows, following the successful implementation of the Dencun and Pectra network upgrades — both aimed at reducing transaction costs and boosting throughput.
Rolled out in May 2025, the Pectra upgrade doubled the blob capacity available to layer-2 (L2) networks, slashing L2 transaction fees by roughly 50% and shifting more activity off the mainnet to ease congestion.
Meanwhile, the Dencun upgrade, deployed on March 13, 2024, has continued to deliver results a year later — cutting average Ethereum transaction fees by 95% by moving a greater share of transactions from layer 1 (L1) to L2 solutions, according to reports.
