Even as ETH struggles below $3,000, developers surge as record contract deployments indicate organic growth driven by rollups, stablecoins, RWAs, and wallets.
Ethereum has recorded a major rebound in developer activity, despite a stunted performance on the price side of things. The network deployed a record 8.7 million smart contracts in a single quarter, according to a Token Terminal chart shared by Ethereum analyst Joseph Young.
The figure is an all-time high and breaks the previous quarterly record of around 6 million contracts set in the second quarter of 2021.
In his latest post on X, Young said that steady growth in contract deployments across multiple quarters is difficult to artificially inflate, which essentially means that the current trend reflects genuine, organic demand rather than short-term speculation. He attributed the surge mainly to the rapid expansion of rollups and Layer 2 networks, alongside rising activity in real-world asset (RWA) issuance, stablecoins, and wallet infrastructure, including intent-based systems.
The data is particularly important given Ethereum’s recent history. Contract deployments had been trending sharply lower through 2024 and much of 2025. In 2024, quarterly deployments struggled to exceed 1.5 million, while the final quarter of that year saw just over 528,000 new contracts, the latter being the weakest level since 2017.
Even in 2025, deployments fell from nearly 6 million in the first quarter to 3.1 million by the third quarter. Against this backdrop, the current spike is a clear reversal, which brings total lifetime contracts deployed on Ethereum to roughly 91.7 million.
As a broader sign of renewed network momentum, Ethereum has also seen a rise in on-chain usage alongside falling costs. Data compiled by Etherscan revealed that the mainnet recently processed approximately 2.2 million transactions in a single day, which is yet another new record, while average transaction fees have dropped to around $0.17.
This contrasts sharply with May 2022, when fees regularly exceeded $200 per transaction. Protocol upgrades in 2025, including Pectra and Fusaka, have improved validator efficiency and increased the gas limit, and have helped Ethereum handle higher activity at lower cost.
Additionally, CryptoQuant found that total transfer counts climbed to around 1.06 million on December 29, a level not seen since October 2023. The metric became increasingly volatile in the final quarter of 2025 and broke away from the relatively stable activity seen earlier in the year.
The rise in transfers has come even as ETH’s price remained below its yearly highs.
