‘Adoption paradox’ in effect as Ether lags while network activity surges

Ethereum is currently trapped in a massive "adoption paradox," where on-chain usage has reached record highs even as its price struggles. While daily active addresses hit an all-time high of nearly 2 million in February 2026 and smart contract calls exceeded 40 million, the price of ETH remains roughly 60% below its peak. Analysts at CryptoQuant warn that this breakdown in the historical correlation between usage and price is driven by capital flowing out of the asset and into Layer-2 networks, which handle the volume but capture very little fee revenue for the main Ethereum chain.