Far Below Ethereum’s Highs, but This Metric Keeps Growing!
While Ethereum’s price remains below its previous highs, the total number of smart contracts on the network has surpassed 72 million and daily address activity has largely held steady, highlighting a divergence between price and network development.
An analysis shared by CryptoQuant compared Ethereum’s price movements with network usage and development activity. During the period examined, ETH fell from levels above $4,500 to around $1,500–$1,600 in the summer, before recovering to approximately $2,500 in the final part of the chart.
Network data did not show a comparable decline despite the sharp price swings. The analysis highlighted two indicators: daily active addresses and the total number of smart contracts created on the network.
Price fluctuated, while address activity continued
In the chart covering September 2025–October 2026, daily active addresses mostly ranged between 300,000 and 500,000. Some days in early 2026 saw spikes above 1 million, while the latest reading was shown at 337,600.
CryptoQuant interprets this data as showing that basic network usage continued despite the price decline. Active addresses measure addresses making transactions, so this figure does not directly represent the number of unique users.
More than 12 million smart contracts added
In the second chart, the total number of smart contracts rose from around 60 million in January 2026 to more than 72 million in October. This means the number of contracts added to the network since the start of the year exceeded approximately 12 million.
Smart contracts are code that enables applications to run on a blockchain. This indicator tracks the cumulative total of contracts created on the network, not the number of active applications each day.
The analysis views the continued increase in this total during months when prices both fell and recovered as a sign that developers continued their work. CryptoQuant’s conclusion is that usage and infrastructure development on Ethereum have continued despite short-term price fluctuations.