While Bitcoin's pullback sparked market concerns, the Ethereum ecosystem demonstrated remarkable resilience. Ethereum's on-chain decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume reached a record high in August, with the number of monthly active addresses exceeding 19.45 million, the highest level since May of this year.
This strong performance is driven by multiple factors. Layer 2 solutions are maturing, with platforms like Arbitrum and Optimism significantly reducing user transaction costs and activating a large number of long-tail users. Meanwhile, competing public chains like Solana have recently encountered performance bottlenecks, causing some capital to flow back into the Ethereum ecosystem.
More importantly, various innovative derivatives products have provided a compliant bridge for institutional capital to enter Ethereum DeFi. The surge in DEX trading volume is primarily attributed to the outstanding performance of platforms like Uniswap V3, Curve, and emerging Layer 2 platforms like GMX and dYdX.
The number of active addresses exceeding 19.45 million indicates that more independent users are participating in activities such as transfers, DeFi interactions, and NFT trading, collectively building a more prosperous and diverse on-chain economy.
The success of the Layer 2 scaling solution was a key catalyst, reducing average transaction fees from tens of dollars to a few cents, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for new users. With the Cancun upgrade approaching, Ethereum’s scalability is poised for another leap forward.