Ethereum’s Bulletproofing Strategy Yields Stunning Results: Active Addresses Surge 71% as Fees Plummet
December 2025 — The Ethereum blockchain demonstrates remarkable resilience as its multi-year bulletproofing strategy delivers measurable results. Network data reveals a significant surge in user adoption alongside dramatically reduced transaction costs, positioning Ethereum as a more accessible and sustainable platform for decentralized applications. These developments occur amid intense competition within the blockchain sector and ahead of planned technical upgrades designed to future-proof the network for decades.
Ethereum’s User Metrics Show Substantial Growth
Recent analytics from blockchain data provider Nansen indicate a pivotal shift in Ethereum’s network activity. On Monday, December 9, 2025, the number of active addresses on the Ethereum mainnet exceeded 791,000. This figure represents a substantial 71% increase from the 460,000 active addresses recorded exactly one year prior. Consequently, Ethereum now surpasses its own major layer-2 scaling solutions in daily active users, including networks like Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism.
Simultaneously, transaction costs have reached unprecedented lows. The average fee for an Ethereum transaction dropped to just $0.15 on Monday, according to on-chain data. This marks a dramatic reduction from the network’s historical highs. For context, during the peak of decentralized finance and non-fungible token activity in late 2021 to mid-2022, users frequently reported gas fees exceeding $200 per transaction. Even one year ago, the average transaction fee stood at approximately $11.
Technical Upgrades Drive Performance Improvements
The improved metrics follow a series of strategic network upgrades implemented throughout 2024 and 2025. These upgrades specifically targeted scalability and cost reduction, which were previously significant barriers to mainstream Ethereum adoption.
The Pectra and Fusaka Upgrades
In May 2024, the Ethereum network activated the Pectra upgrade. This hard fork primarily increased the capacity of “blobs,” a specialized data storage mechanism used by rollups to post transaction data more efficiently. By expanding blob space, the upgrade allowed layer-2 networks to operate with lower operational costs, which ultimately translated to cheaper fees for end-users.
The development continued with the Fusaka upgrade, which activated on December 3, 2025. Fusaka introduced two critical enhancements. First, it further increased blob capacity. Second, and more innovatively, it implemented Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS). This system allows network validators to verify transactions by downloading only small, random samples of blob data rather than entire data sets. Consequently, the network achieves greater efficiency and reduced bandwidth requirements for validators.
The combined effect of these upgrades includes:
- Lower data posting costs for rollups
- Increased network throughput capacity
- Enhanced validator decentralization by reducing hardware requirements
- A more sustainable economic model for applications
Developer Activity and Network Competition
Beyond user metrics, developer engagement on Ethereum has reached new heights. Data from analytics platform Token Terminal shows that the number of new smart contracts created and published on Ethereum reached an all-time high of 8.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. This surge in developer activity signals strong confidence in Ethereum as a long-term settlement layer for decentralized applications.
This growth occurs within a highly competitive layer-1 blockchain landscape. Networks like Solana and BNB Chain currently lead the industry in total transactions and active addresses, largely driven by high throughput and popularity for retail trading and memecoin activity. Tron also maintains a significant user base for specific use cases. Ethereum’s strategy, therefore, focuses not on matching raw transaction volume but on achieving unparalleled security, decentralization, and long-term stability.
The Vision for a 100-Year Ethereum
The recent technical and metric successes align with a broader philosophical vision for the network’s future. On Monday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin articulated this vision in a detailed post on social media platform X. Buterin argued that for Ethereum to endure for a century, it must eventually reach a state where core developers can “walk away” — meaning the protocol becomes so robust and complete that it no longer requires ongoing foundational updates from a central team to remain functional and secure.
Buterin outlined several critical milestones necessary to pass this “walkaway test”:
| Requirement | Description |
|---|---|
| Quantum Resistance | Implementation of cryptographic safeguards against future quantum computing attacks. |
| Massive Scalability | Architecture capable of scaling thousands of times beyond current capacity. |
| Durable State Architecture | A state management system designed to remain efficient for decades. |
| General-Purpose Account Model | Flexible account abstraction to support diverse application needs. |
| Decentralized Proof-of-Stake | A staking model that maintains decentralization over the long term. |
| Resistant Block Building | Mechanisms to prevent centralization in block production. |
Buterin suggested that the development community should aim to “tick off at least one of these boxes, and ideally multiple” each year. The recent Fusaka upgrade, with its PeerDAS implementation, represents progress toward the scalability and decentralization goals.
Future Roadmap: Glamsterdam and Beyond
The network’s evolution continues with the planned Glamsterdam fork scheduled for 2026. This upgrade promises several significant enhancements:
- Perfect Parallel Processing: This will allow transactions that do not conflict with each other to be processed simultaneously, dramatically increasing potential throughput.
- Gas Limit Increase: The block gas limit will rise to 200 million from the current 60 million, enabling more complex transactions per block.
- Further Blob Expansion: Additional increases to blob size will continue the trend of reducing data costs for layer-2 networks.
Analysts project that these combined changes could increase Ethereum’s base layer throughput to approximately 10,000 transactions per second. This represents a monumental leap from the network’s early capabilities and addresses a long-standing critique regarding its scalability.
Conclusion
The latest data unequivocally shows that Ethereum’s deliberate, multi-year strategy to enhance scalability and reduce costs is yielding significant results. The surge in active addresses to over 791,000 and the plunge in average fees to $0.15 demonstrate tangible progress. These improvements stem from carefully executed upgrades like Pectra and Fusaka, which optimized data storage and validation. Furthermore, record-high smart contract deployment indicates strong developer conviction. As the network progresses toward the ambitious “walkaway” vision and prepares for the Glamsterdam fork, Ethereum is methodically building the foundation for a more scalable, affordable, and durable blockchain ecosystem. The current metrics suggest this bulletproofing strategy is not only working but actively attracting users and builders back to the base layer.
FAQs
Q1: What does “bulletproofing Ethereum” mean?
In this context, bulletproofing refers to a series of technical upgrades and philosophical shifts aimed at making the Ethereum network extremely robust, scalable, and secure. The goal is to create a system so complete and decentralized that it can operate securely for decades without requiring fundamental changes from a core development team.
Q2: Why are Ethereum transaction fees so much lower now?
Fees have dropped primarily due to upgrades that increased data storage capacity (blob space) and introduced more efficient data verification methods (PeerDAS). These changes reduce the cost for layer-2 rollups to post data to the mainnet, savings which are passed on to users. Increased network capacity also reduces congestion, which historically drove up gas prices.
Q3: How does Ethereum’s active address count compare to layer-2 networks?
As of December 2025, Ethereum’s mainnet has surpassed its own major layer-2 networks in daily active addresses. Data shows over 791,000 active addresses on Ethereum L1, which is higher than on individual L2s like Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism. This suggests some activity is migrating back to the base layer as it becomes more affordable.
Q4: What is the “walkaway test” that Vitalik Buterin mentioned?
The walkaway test is a conceptual benchmark for when a blockchain’s development reaches a point of maturity where the original creators and core developers could theoretically cease all work, and the network would continue to function securely and effectively for users and applications indefinitely. It emphasizes long-term sustainability and decentralization.
Q5: What is the next major upgrade for Ethereum?
The next scheduled major upgrade is the Glamsterdam fork, expected in 2026. Its key features include perfect parallel processing for increased throughput, a significant increase in the block gas limit, and further expansion of data blob capacity. These changes aim to push Ethereum’s scalability to new heights.
