Ethereum Gas Fee Continues to Drop, Now at 0.352 Gwei

On January 2nd, on-chain data analyst Yu Jin detected that after Ethereum (ETH) once again rose above $3,000, a whale who had borrowed 5,000 ETH to short the token a month earlier chose to close their position. The whale has just withdrawn 4,830 ETH (worth approximately $14.75 million) from Binance to repay the loan on-chain. This ETH short trade netted them roughly $390,000 in profit. They borrowed the tokens to short on December 5th when ETH was trading at $3,132, and today repurchased the ETH at $3,054 to settle the loan.

Binance will expand monitored tags for specific tokens on January 2, 2026, per official sources, adding the following: - Acala Token (ACA) - DAR Open Network (D) - Streamr (DATA) - Flow (FLOW) Binance noted that tokens with monitored tags carry significantly higher volatility and risk than other listed tokens. These tokens will be closely monitored and subject to regular reviews. Note that tokens with monitored tags that no longer meet the platform’s listing criteria face delisting risk.

Data cited by The Block on January 2nd shows Ethereum’s 7-day moving average of daily transactions hit 1.87 million on December 31st, marking an all-time high. That figure topped the previous record of 1.61 million transactions set during the 2021 NFT and DeFi boom on May 10, and also exceeded the recent peak of 1.73 million transactions recorded on August 9, 2025. Ethereum’s active address count also hit a phase high at year-end, reaching 728,904 — the highest level since May 12, 2021. Additionally, new addresses on December 31st totaled 270,160, the largest single-day increase since early 2018. Nick Ruck, research director at LVRG, noted the recent surge in on-chain activity is primarily driven by network upgrades. These upgrades have significantly cut transaction fees, boosted scalability, and drawn more institutional participation via ETFs and Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization.

As of January 2nd, Dune data shows the total Ethereum staked on the Beacon Chain has reached 35,903,070 ETH—representing 28.91% of the total ETH supply. Liquid staking protocol Lido holds a 24.45% share of that staked ETH. Additionally, there’s been a net inflow of 17,737,080 ETH since the Shanghai upgrade.

Jan 2nd — Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, predicts former President Trump would shift U.S. tariffs from a barrier to a bargaining chip, driving the economy to post growth above 3% via tariff cuts paired with a surge in tax refunds. Inflationary pressure will act as the catalyst pushing the Trump administration to pivot from protectionism to trade moderation, leveraging already negotiated deals to lower tariffs. With that strategic goal met, the White House is now poised to ease inflation by cutting tariffs. Treasury Secretary Benson also signaled tariffs are growing less effective. Yardeni additionally warned that major geopolitical shocks — such as a worsening European situation — would render all economic forecasts obsolete. (Fx678)

Per DefiLlama data as of January 2nd, Hyperliquid’s December revenue totaled $61.24 million—down 32.4% from November’s $90.60 million.