According to MarsBit, Ethereum’s ecosystem in the first quarter of 2026 showed a clear divergence between record on-chain activity and contraction in U.S. dollar-denominated metrics. The report said monthly active users, transaction volume and TPS all reached historical highs, indicating that usage across the Ethereum network continued to expand during the quarter.
The report linked the rise in activity to upgrades including Blob expansion. At the same time, Ethereum’s U.S. dollar-based indicators moved lower, with ETH market capitalization declining during the reporting period. This created a contrast between stronger network usage and weaker market value metrics. Within the ecosystem, tokenized assets led the broader industry, with especially strong year-on-year growth in fund and commodity categories.
Stablecoins remained the dominant category among Ethereum-based tokenized assets. Although ETH market capitalization fell, the staking rate and the number of ETH-holding addresses continued to rise. Taken together, the Q1 report presented three parallel trends for Ethereum: expanding on-chain usage, rapid growth in tokenized assets, and a pullback in market capitalization measured in U.S. dollars.