⚡ ETH ends 2025 with a bang

By Cryptopolitan — 01 Jan 2026

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year and welcome to 2026.

Crypto took some big steps last year. Some forward, some sideways. But every move brought us closer to what this space is really about: building something better.

Whether it was your first year in the markets or your tenth, thank you for being part of this journey with us.

We’ll keep bringing you the most important stories, the sharpest insights, and a daily view that helps you stay one step ahead.

Here’s to a year of growth, resilience, and new opportunities.

— Team Cryptopolitan

Ethereum ended the year with a bang.

On Dec. 30, the network processed more than 2.2 million transactions in a single day: an all-time record. And it didn’t happen with gas fees shooting through the stratosphere.

In reality, average transaction prices were a mere 17 cents.

That’s a huge departure from even just a few months ago, when sending the smallest transaction could reliably cost more than $2. The difference? A series of silent but significant hardware updates under the hood.

Ethereum’s recent Fusaka update again bumped improvement by ~33%, meaning the network can better handle a lot more action without breaking much of a sweat. Pectra introduced smoother validator performance earlier in the year and paved the way for future scaling efforts.

Together, they’ve delivered an Ethereum that’s cheaper, faster and vastly more powerful than it used to be even with DeFi activity heating up again, NFTs making a comeback and 8.7 million smart contracts deployed this past quarter alone.

Why does this matter?

Ethereum flailed under its own weight a couple years ago.
Each surge in use sent gas fees soaring back to painful levels.
That is why users began migrating to chains like Solana, where the fees are near-zero and memes grow.

But that may be changing.

With recent upgrades, Ethereum has effectively proven it’s capable of scaling, not just so that more users are pushed to Layer 2s, but on the base layer as well.

We are finally beginning to witness something that the skeptics said would never happen: low-cost, high throughput.

Cryptopolitan’s Take:

Ethereum is not trying to catch the hype right now; it’s just working better. And as long as that continues to be the case, it’ll remain relevant.

Next is Glamsterdam, a 2026 upgrade that would better enable access to blocks and reduce the lag time in how transactions are developed and more quickly confirmed. A more sophisticated and extensible counter-censorship tool, FOCIL, is under discussion for a future release.

Ethereum’s vision isn’t finished yet, but its first step is an unqualified success.

🗳️ POLL: Is Ethereum finally fixing the gas problem?

Yes: it feels smoother and cheaper already

Too early to say, but it’s a good sign

Not really: Solana and others still feel faster

📊 Market Watch

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The contrast between the two underscores an emerging disconnect: TradFi surged on AI and macro economic stability, while crypto settled after a fast start led by politics and ETFs.

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🧐 XRP and SOL were 2x more volatile than BTC

Even though billions poured into ETFs, XRP and SOL had annualized volatility of 80%, almost double Bitcoin’s 43%.

And even ETH and BNB capped at 76% and 51%, respectively. The data adds credence to BTC’s narrative of dominance, with one commentator claiming altcoins require more liquidity and institutional maturity in order to settle.

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🪙 Stablecoins closed out 2025 with record activity

Ethereum-based stablecoins hit all-time highs of ~600K daily active addresses in December, doubling the previous number in 2022. Despite price crashes across BTC and ETH, stablecoin usage skyrocketed, propelled by use cases including arbitrage, lending, settlements and institutional flows.

USDC was the best value choice, despite USDT's continued hold on volume.

Read here

👀 Are you watching this?

Arthur Hayes is making bold moves, and all eyes are on him.

The BitMEX co-founder just dumped over $5.5M in ETH and rotated the funds into DeFi names like PENDLE, LDO, ENA, and ETHFI. His portfolio is now 60% DeFi and stablecoins, with PENDLE taking the majority share.

Read here