Despite falling fees, major blockchain networks like Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Avalanche are seeing more user activity and transaction growth, according to recent onchain data.

December saw a surprising trend in the crypto space: more transactions on many blockchains, but lower fees. This signals that recent network upgrades are working — they’re making these platforms faster and more efficient without overloading them.

Data from Nansen shows that several top blockchains — including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, and The Open Network (TON) — handled more transactions in December than in previous periods. At the same time, the fees users paid to send those transactions dropped significantly.

Ethereum saw a 16% increase in transactions even as its fee revenue dropped by 57%. Polygon had one of the biggest jumps — transactions rose 82%, while fees fell by 47%. Arbitrum and Avalanche also followed this pattern: more usage, lower costs.

Bitcoin, Tron, and TON also saw modest transaction growth — around 0.6% to 7.9% — but fees still declined, showing that blockspace demand is easing across the board.

This trend points to a larger shift in blockchain design. Many networks have recently upgraded their systems to handle more transactions per second. These upgrades reduce competition for space in each block and help keep fees low even when usage increases.

Ethereum made a key change on November 27 by raising its block gas limit to 60 million. This allowed more actions to fit into each block. Then in December, Ethereum introduced the Fusaka upgrade with PeerDAS technology, which expanded data capacity and reduced costs for rollups — a key type of scaling solution.

Polygon rolled out its Madhugiri upgrade in early December, cutting consensus time to just one second and improving efficiency by up to 33%. These changes were designed with stablecoin and real-world asset (RWA) usage in mind — types of transactions that happen often but don’t need high-speed processing. This helped increase volume without driving up fees.

Avalanche’s growth was driven by real use cases like stablecoin payments, institutional settlements, gaming, and ticketing. These applications generate lots of transactions but don’t create congestion, keeping fees low.

Arbitrum’s strong performance reflects how rollup technology works. By bundling multiple transactions off-chain and posting them on Ethereum as compressed data, it can scale efficiently. Its unique fee system separates execution from data posting costs, which keeps fees steady even when traffic increases.

However, not all networks followed this positive trend. Some saw a sharp decline in both activity and fee revenue. BNB Chain had a big drop: transactions fell by 79%, and fees went down 14%. Base and HyperEVM also struggled — Base saw a 75% drop in transactions and 63% lower fees. HyperEVM experienced even steeper declines with a 119% drop in transactions and a 46% fall in fees.

Solana remained the most active network with 1.7 billion transactions in December. Still, even Solana saw a 21% drop in activity compared to the previous month, along with a 17% decline in fee revenue.

These mixed signals reflect the broader state of the crypto market. Throughout December, the total crypto market cap hovered between $2.9 trillion and $3.1 trillion, with little price movement or trading volatility. As a result, some blockchain networks cooled off even as others became more efficient and active.

Key takeaways:
– Blockchain transaction volume is rising even as fees drop.
– Networks like Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Avalanche benefit from recent upgrades.
– Real-world use cases like stablecoins, gaming, and tokenization are helping drive activity.
– Some chains like BNB Chain and Base saw usage fall sharply.
– The market remains steady but slow-moving as activity varies across networks.

These trends show that scaling solutions are working — users can do more onchain without paying more.