According to Nansen data, on-chain activity fell sharply across several major networks, with 11 blockchains seeing a decline in lively addresses over the past 12 months.
Ronin fell essentially the most at 70%, while Bitcoin saw a decline of seven.2%. Several Ethereum Layer 2 networks made the list.
Nansen data also showed a decline in transaction activity on a lot of these networks. ZKsync saw one among the steepest declines, with transactions falling by 90%.
Meanwhile, Ethereum's base layer saw a 25% increase in lively addresses and a greater than 20% increase in transactions, whilst debate continued over Ethereum's rollup-centric roadmap and concerns about liquidity fragmentation on Layer 2 networks.
Ronin and Ethereum Layer 2 chains dominate the decline in activity, while Bitcoin enters the list. Source: Nansen
Networks with the most important declines in usage
Pixels is a well-liked game that migrated from Polygon to Ronin within the second half of 2023. At the time, Ronin had about 20,000 every day lively users before the launch of Pixels led to a pointy increase in activity, briefly making Ronin the second most lively chain by every day users.
By December 2024, Pixels had around 300,000 every day lively users, in accordance with DappRadar. The game's popularity has since declined, and Ronin's on-chain activity has declined at the identical time, showing the network's dependence on successful games.
Pixel activity has declined throughout 2025. Source: DappRadar
Several Ethereum Layer 2 networks also saw a decline in usage as airdrop-related activity slowed. ZKsync’s token airdrop claim opened in June 2024. The network said nearly 700,000 wallets were eligible while warding off criticism of its Sybil filtering. Nansen data showed that greater than 40% of top airdrop wallets sold their allocations immediately. Scroll also appeared on the list after its airdrop in October 2024, after which on-chain activity slowed down.
Arbitrum saw a 3% decline in lively addresses, although its roughly 31 million users still place it among the many top 10 networks by activity. Ethereum Rollup airdropped in 2023 and its transaction volume increased by 36% last 12 months to about 734.5 million, surpassing Ethereum's 507 million transactions. Arbitrum drew its activity from tokenized assets, including 500 US stocks stamped by Robinhood on the network.
Among Ethereum's Layer 2 networks, Base and Optimism stood out. Both saw a rise in lively addresses and transaction volume. Base doesn’t have a native token and has never airdropped. On-chain activity increased together with interest in areas corresponding to memecoins, AI-related applications and decentralized exchanges.
Solana recorded essentially the most lively addresses within the industry with greater than 1 billion, followed by Tron and Ethereum. BNB Chain saw a 159% increase in lively addresses, while Bitcoin was the one network in the highest 5 to see a decline, together with a 22% drop in transactions.
Memecoin activity has cooled, but Solana still leads the industry in on-chain activity. Source: Nansen
What the declines do and don't do
The data showed little consistent relationship between on-chain usage and token prices. The price of Solana fell 66% over the past 12 months despite a rise in lively addresses, while the value of the BNB token (BNB) rose together with increased network activity.
BNB is up almost 20% over the past 12 months. Source: CoinGecko
The year-over-year declines don’t necessarily indicate serious problems for the networks involved. On-chain activity can fluctuate wildly as applications migrate, incentive programs end, or users move between chains, especially on newer networks which can be still establishing their core use cases.
Telegram-linked blockchain The Open Network (TON) also saw a 47% drop in lively addresses and a 51% drop in transactions, a reversal that followed outsized growth in 2024. Telegram-based mini-games drove much of this earlier activity, attracting users beyond the platform's typical crypto-native audience.
Hamster Kombat was probably the most famous examples. The tap-based game lowered the barrier to entry through easy mechanisms and attracted strong participation from users anticipating a future token airdrop. According to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, the viral game attracted 239 million users in three months, with greater than 130 million qualifying for the airdrop at the tip of September.
Nansen data shows that TON lively addresses peaked at around 2.5 million per day on September thirtieth. Since then, activity has declined as engagement related to Hamster Kombat has cooled, underscoring how short-lived increases can distort year-over-year comparisons.
Hamster Kombat took Ton's activity to latest records. Source: Nansen
Some chains maintained usage after the hype
Blockchain data over the past 12 months shows that on-chain activity is rapidly moving between networks quite than remaining anchored to a single chain. The biggest drop in usage was for blockchains where activity was concentrated in a small variety of applications, incentive programs or viral moments.
At the identical time, these declines don’t mechanically mean a broader ecosystem failure. In several cases, activity cooled off after periods of excessive growth, showing how year-over-year comparisons will be distorted by hype cycles, airdrops, or short-lived applications.
Solana provides a useful contrast. While memecoin activity boomed throughout 2024 and early 2025 before cooling off towards the tip of the 12 months, the surge also brought users, liquidity and applications that continued to support the network.
Solana's memecoin boom spawned latest addresses that persevered after the boom. Source: Nansen
Solana's every day lively addresses peaked at over 9 million on October 22, 2024, throughout the peak of memecoin trading. By December, the variety of every day users fluctuated between 2 and three million. Although this represented a major decline from the height, activity remained consistently higher than before the boom.
Much of the decline in on-chain activity over the past 12 months was as a consequence of short-term profits, but networks like Solana, BNB Chain and Base showed signs of sustaining usage beyond viral surges, setting them other than chains that experienced stronger reversals.
