On-chain activity across major blockchains fluctuated sharply over the past year, according to new analytics from Nansen. While some networks surged on viral games, airdrops, or memecoin manias only to crash later, others showed steadier, more resilient growth. The data highlights a growing divide between chains driven by short-term hype and those building durable, multi-use ecosystems.
Several blockchains experienced steep year-over-year declines in active addresses. Ronin saw the sharpest drop, plunging roughly 70%, while Bitcoin recorded a more modest decline of about 7.2%. Transaction counts followed similar patterns. zkSync, for example, saw transactions collapse by nearly 90% after activity peaked during its airdrop period.
Despite ongoing debate around liquidity fragmentation and Layer-2 sprawl, Ethereum’s base layer quietly moved in the opposite direction. Active addresses on Ethereum increased by roughly 25% over the year, while transactions rose more than 20%, suggesting that core usage remained strong even as users experimented with rollups.
Layer-2 Networks and the Post-Airdrop Reality
Layer-2 networks delivered mixed results as airdrop-driven surges cooled. zkSync opened its token claim in June 2024 with close to 700,000 eligible wallets, but controversy over Sybil-filtering and heavy selling pressure followed. More than 40% of the top wallets sold their allocations soon after claiming, and activity dropped sharply. Scroll saw a similar slowdown after its October 2024 airdrop.
Arbitrum remained one of the most active Layer-2s despite a slight dip in active addresses of around 3%. The network still counted roughly 31 million users and ranked in the top 10 chains by activity. Notably, Arbitrum’s transaction volume rose about 36% to approximately 734.5 million transactions, surpassing Ethereum’s roughly 507 million. Growth was partly driven by tokenized assets, including 500 U.S. stocks issued on the network by Robinhood.
Base and Optimism stood out as relative winners among Layer-2s. Both networks posted gains in active addresses and transaction volume. Base, which launched without a native token and never ran an airdrop, benefited from organic usage across memecoins, AI-focused applications, and decentralized exchanges. Its growth suggests that sustained engagement may not require heavy incentive programs.
Viral Apps, Games, and the Sustainability Question
Some of the steepest reversals came from networks heavily dependent on a single breakout application. Ronin’s rise and fall illustrates this risk clearly. Before the game Pixels migrated from Polygon to Ronin in the second half of 2023, the network had around 20,000 daily active users. Pixels briefly turned Ronin into one of the most active chains in the industry, drawing roughly 300,000 daily users by December 2024. As interest in the game cooled, Ronin’s on-chain activity fell sharply.
Telegram’s Open Network (TON) followed a similar trajectory. After explosive growth in 2024 driven by Telegram mini-games, TON saw active addresses fall about 47% and transactions decline by roughly 51%. Hamster Kombat, a simple tapping game tied to airdrop speculation, was a major driver. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said the game attracted 239 million users in just three months, with more than 130 million qualifying for an airdrop. TON’s active addresses peaked near 2.5 million per day in late September before dropping back.
At the high end of raw usage, Solana recorded the most active addresses in the industry with more than 1 billion, followed by Tron and Ethereum. BNB Chain posted a 159% increase in active addresses over the year. Bitcoin stood out as the only network in the top five to record declines in both active addresses and transactions, with transactions down roughly 22%.
Importantly, the data showed little consistent correlation between on-chain activity and token prices. Solana’s token price declined over the year even as active addresses rose about 66%, while BNB’s price increased alongside its expanding on-chain footprint.
Overall, the findings suggest that year-over-year declines do not automatically signal failure. On-chain metrics can swing dramatically as applications migrate, incentive programs end, or viral trends fade. Newer networks that relied heavily on a small number of apps or speculative moments experienced the sharpest reversals. In contrast, ecosystems like Solana, BNB Chain, and Base appear to have retained more lasting users and liquidity after their growth spikes.
The broader takeaway is clear: the on-chain landscape remains highly dynamic. Short-lived booms can reshape activity charts overnight, but long-term adoption tends to emerge where networks support a diverse set of real use cases beyond momentary hype.
