Daily active addresses on the Ethereum mainnet surpassed all layer-2 networks in January as transaction fees remained low.
Data from Token Terminal showed a “return to mainnet,” with Ethereum activity exceeding that of major scaling networks.
Etherscan data indicated active addresses peaked at about 1.3 million on January 16 before stabilising near 945,000 per day.
The figure exceeded activity on layer-2 networks including Arbitrum One, Base Chain and OP Mainnet.
Analysts noted that total value secured across layer-2 networks stands at $45 billion, down 17% year-on-year, according to L2Beat.
Network activity increased following Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade in December, which significantly reduced gas fees.
Security researcher Andrey Sergeenkov said part of the surge may be linked to dusting and address poisoning attacks.
Address poisoning involves scammers sending small transactions from similar-looking wallet addresses to trick users into copying the wrong destination.
Analysts at Cyvers said the recent rise in activity was materially driven by address poisoning campaigns.
“It’s reasonable to conclude that the recent spike in Ethereum network activity is being materially driven by address poisoning campaigns,”
Cyvers analysts said.
Despite concerns, ARK Invest said Ethereum remains the leading blockchain for on-chain asset tokenisation.
ARK Invest reported that assets on Ethereum exceed $400 billion and the tokenised asset market could surpass $11 trillion by 2030.
At the time of reporting, Ethereum price was $2,964.19.