Several major blockchain networks processed more transactions in December even as user fees declined, suggesting that recent scaling upgrades are boosting capacity and easing competition for block space, according to data from Nansen.
Nansen’s data showed month-over-month transaction growth across Bitcoin, Tron, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, and The Open Network (TON), alongside sharp declines in fee revenue.
- Ethereum saw a 16% increase in transactions despite a 57% drop in fees.
- Polygon recorded an 82% jump in transactions while fees fell 47%.
- Arbitrum and Avalanche also exhibited a clear transactions-up, fees-down pattern.
Other chains, including Tron, Bitcoin, and TON, experienced more modest transaction growth of 0.6%, 7.7%, and 7.9%, respectively, but still saw declining fee revenue, underscoring a broader trend of reduced blockspace pressure.
These patterns point to a structural shift in blockchain demand management. Scaling upgrades, rollups, and more cost-efficient execution environments have expanded capacity without triggering congestion or bidding wars for transaction inclusion.
Transactions rise as fee pressure fades across major networks
According to Nansen, its percentage-change figures reflect shifts relative to recent activity baselines rather than strict month-over-month comparisons. Sharp reversals or outflows can register as declines exceeding 100%, representing a net negative flow in activity momentum rather than literal “negative transactions.”
Several networks showed increased transaction activity alongside declining fees, driven largely by scaling upgrades and ecosystem developments:
- Ethereum: On Nov. 27, Ethereum raised its block gas limit to 60 million, allowing more transactions and contract calls per block and easing congestion. In December, the Fusaka upgrade introduced PeerDAS, expanding data availability and reducing rollup costs. These improvements increased throughput while lowering aggregate fee pressure.
- Polygon: Following the Madhugiri hard fork in early December, Polygon cut consensus times to one second and boosted throughput by up to 33%, making gas-heavy operations more efficient. The upgrades focused on stablecoins and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, generating frequent but low-urgency transactions that raised volumes without pushing fees higher.
- Avalanche: Nansen’s Avalanche Ecosystem Report attributes transaction growth to stablecoin payments, institutional settlements, and consumer platforms such as ticketing and gaming. These high-throughput use cases create minimal blockspace competition, allowing fees to decline even as activity rises.
- Arbitrum: As a rollup, Arbitrum batches transactions off-chain and posts compressed data to Ethereum. Its fee market separates execution costs from Ethereum calldata costs, enabling transaction volumes to grow without proportional fee increases, thus dampening volatility.
Divergence not universal
Not all networks shared this trend. Some chains experienced simultaneous declines in both activity and fee revenue, reflecting quieter on-chain usage over the past 30 days:
- BNB Chain: Transactions fell 79%, with fees down 14%.
- Base: Transactions dropped 75%, while fee revenue declined 63%.
- HyperEVM: Transactions fell 119%, with fees down 46%, suggesting significantly reduced short-term usage.
- Solana: Despite remaining the busiest network with 1.7 billion transactions, activity declined 21% month-on-month, and fee revenue fell 17%.
These patterns highlight how scaling upgrades, ecosystem developments, and network-specific fee structures are reshaping transaction dynamics across major blockchains.
These simultaneous declines mirror broader crypto market conditions. CoinGecko data shows that total crypto market capitalization fluctuated between $2.9 trillion and $3.1 trillion throughout December.
With price movement, volatility, and capital rotation remaining subdued, on-chain activity across networks cooled in tandem.
