RE: LeoThread 2026-01-09 22-34

L1 transaction costs hit five‑year lows and L2 fees fell below $0.01, making payments, remittances, and savings products commonplace. Mature paymaster infrastructure let major apps abstract or remove user transaction fees.

These shifts enabled global adoption:
→ Ethereum’s $99B+ DeFi TVL surpassed the next-largest L1 by over 9x, leading global liquidity (on‑chain trackers).

→ A new wave of neobanks launched cards, reward programs, and reached millions in daily spend as regulatory clarity improved. → Multiple exchanges and brokerages issued stock tokens on Ethereum rails (L1 + L2s), extending access to U.S.

equities; one major broker also announced plans to build an L2 using Arbitrum’s Orbit stack. → Over $18.8 trillion in stablecoin volume settled on Ethereum in 2025, reinforcing stablecoins as global digital dollars.

Smart wallets entered production after the Pectra upgrade, improving security and enabling account-level programmability. Prediction markets became mainstream sources of macro truth, moving $20B in volume across L1 + L2s.

From micropayments to remittances, Ethereum served as the base layer for new digital financial infrastructure.

2/ Institutional adoption accelerated, driven by projects with clear utility.

ETH corporate treasuries grew, with $35B+ of ETH held by ETFs and strategic reserves. Institutions began using smart contracts to program capital, allocating yield via DeFi and distributing over $12B of real‑world assets on Ethereum.

Major banks, issuers, and payment processors adopted Ethereum L2s for verifiable settlement, composability, and 24/7 programmable products.

3/ The rollup-centric roadmap was validated by a fast-scaling L2 landscape and technical unlocks.

→ The ecosystem expanded as Celo transitioned toward Ethereum L2 status, and others announced similar intentions. → Combined TPS across rollups averaged about 5,600 for the first time.

→ The Fusaka upgrade introduced PeerDAS, increasing blob capacity and lowering L2 costs. → L1 gas limit rose to 60M, boosting L1 settlement capacity by ~33% and enabling further L2 growth in 2026.

L2s became primary execution layers for high‑frequency economic activity while preserving L1 security and decentralization.

4/ Interoperability between L1 and L2s advanced toward a more unified Ethereum.

Standards like ERC‑7683 standardized order and settlement interfaces for cross‑execution. The Open Intents Framework, backed by many teams, improved secure, cheaper, and faster settlement across chains.

An Ethereum Interop Layer launched on testnet, progressing toward unified rollups via trustless single‑signature cross‑chain transactions.

These developments enabled seamless, secure, permissionless experiences across the ecosystem.

5/ Privacy emerged as a core focus across protocol and application layers.

Privacy pools and privacy protocols reached new all‑time highs for value locked, growing over 60% in 2025. Privacy‑preserving rollups matured, enabling private execution with Ethereum settlement.

The web3 privacy ecosystem expanded to 750+ projects, impacting DeFi, wallets, apps, and storage.

From on‑chain identity to privacy advocacy, efforts advanced sovereignty and trustlessness across the stack.

6/ AI agents became economic actors.

Agents operate with wallets and cryptographic proofs rather than traditional accounts.

The x402 internet‑native payment standard plus attestation flows enabled agent‑to‑agent commerce for services, compute, and data without human intervention. Smart account permissions enforced spending limits and guardrails for agents.

ERC‑8004 matured as a standard for trustless agent discovery, reputation, and validation, with thousands of agents already registering on testnets.

Ethereum progressed as the settlement layer for a machine economy.

7/ Ethereum became a platform for global coordination, enabled by sovereign digital identity.

On‑chain finance drove real‑world action, from disaster relief donations to large humanitarian organizations accepting ETH. Pop‑up cities were funded, governed, and operated using Ethereum infrastructure.

A national government migrated its National Digital Identity to Ethereum, anchoring 200K+ citizen IDs on a public chain for enhanced security and self‑sovereignty.

Proof‑of‑personhood tools advanced sybil‑resistant voting and scalable funding models.

8/ Consumer apps, on‑chain social, and gaming attracted millions of users.

Decentralized apps on L1 reached over 244M unique active wallets. Ethereum led NFT volume and royalties in 2025, with millions of new collections across L1 and L2s.

An anime crowdfunded via NFTs won an Emmy for Outstanding Innovation in Emerging Media Programming—an example of community-driven mainstream success.

DAOs coordinated hundreds of thousands of participants across finance, art, infrastructure, and social impact, managing billions in treasuries with evolving governance tooling and DAO‑friendly regulatory structures.

9/ zkVMs advanced, changing scaling and decentralization prospects.

A boom in ZK‑coprocessors let apps offload heavy compute off‑chain. Live, real‑time ZK proving of Ethereum blocks demonstrated the potential for full ZK light clients on low‑powered devices.

Research into verifiable, real‑time proving continued to drive scaling potential and trust infrastructure.

10/ Two major upgrades—Pectra and Fusaka—shipped within seven months, boosting throughput and data availability.

Wallets became smarter and more accessible, expanding account abstraction and enabling mobile‑native app experiences without complex middleware.

Fusaka’s gains prepared the network for phone‑native consumer apps and broader mass adoption while preserving decentralization.

11/ 2025 showcased a vibrant global ecosystem.

Numerous hackathons and hundreds of community events took place worldwide, and thousands converged at major conferences and fairs.

Permanent community hubs opened in cities like Lagos, London, Berlin, and Dubai, supporting coworking, meetups, and workshops. Ethereum’s global community spanned diverse backgrounds, disciplines, and geographies.

12/ Ethereum celebrated 10 years live in July.

The anniversary spotlighted resilience and growth.

After a decade:
→ Over 88M smart contracts deployed
→ Daily on‑chain transactions hit a record 1.74M
→ The largest developer community of any blockchain, with ~32K active developers and over 16K new developers in the first nine months of the year

With ten years of uninterrupted liveness, Ethereum stands as infrastructure proven through market cycles and global stress. It has evolved from emerging tech into foundational scaffolding for digital civilization.

A new year begins for the Ethereum ecosystem.