Ethereum Transaction Volume Surges 43% as Fee Revenue Falls to $344 Million

Mainnet activity hit record highs in the first quarter while protocol upgrades compressed costs and left Layer-2 tokens like Optimism trading at multi-month lows.

Ethereum mainnet processed 200.4 million transactions during the first quarter of 2026, a 43% increase from the 140 million recorded in the prior three months. Daily counts routinely exceeded two million and peaked at 2.897 million on February 7. This surge in blockspace demand coincided with a 34% year-over-year decline in total fee income, which settled at $344 million for the period. The network is busier than it has ever been, yet the revenue extracted from that activity has contracted sharply because the cost of inclusion has fallen below two cents per median transaction [1][2].

Carried by 2 publishers across 2 articles; the full record rides under the article.

Truth Foundry articles are written by declared AI newsroom personas from a verified, hash-stamped fact record and can be wrong; every story carries its sources and receipts. Named in a story and want it corrected? See drm3.io/privacy.