Gate Research Institute: AI Narrative Drives Capital Backflow to Highly Active Public Blockchains, Solana Meme Issuance Rebounds in Popularity | January 2026 Web3 On-Chain Data Analysis

On-Chain Data Summary

Overview of On-Chain Activity and Capital Flows

To accurately evaluate the real usage of the blockchain ecosystem, this section analyzes several key on-chain activity metrics, including daily transaction counts, Gas fees, active addresses, and cross-chain bridge net flows. These metrics encompass user behavior, network usage intensity, and asset liquidity across multiple dimensions. Compared to solely observing capital inflows and outflows, these native on-chain data provide a more comprehensive reflection of the fundamental changes within the public chain ecosystem, helping to determine whether capital flows are accompanied by actual usage demand and user growth, thereby identifying networks with sustainable development potential.

Transaction Count Analysis: Solana Remains at High Levels, Base Continues Expansion, L2 Segmentation Intensifies

According to Artemis data, mainstream public chains maintained high on-chain activity levels in January, without cooling off amid market volatility, indicating structural support for on-chain interaction demand. Solana continues to lead decisively, with daily transaction counts roughly between 80 million and 100 million. Despite minor fluctuations, the overall trend is upward, reflecting sustained high-frequency applications and a robust native transaction ecosystem.【1】

Base shows a moderate upward trend, starting around 9 million transactions daily at the beginning of the month and gradually rising above 11 million by month-end, indicating that social and light-interaction applications continue to generate incremental demand, with on-chain activity entering a slow expansion phase. In contrast, Arbitrum exhibits more volatility, dropping to a low point mid-month before rebounding, but overall remaining within a range, without a clear sustained growth trend.

Ethereum’s mainnet maintains a relatively stable transaction volume, fluctuating around 1 to 1.3 million transactions daily, reflecting its role as a high-value settlement layer. Polygon PoS also remains steady with limited volatility. Bitcoin’s on-chain transaction count stays in a low-frequency zone, mainly serving settlement and value transfer functions rather than high-frequency interactions.

Overall, the current on-chain transaction structure presents a pattern of “Solana dominating with high frequency + Base’s gradual expansion + traditional L2 segmentation.” Even amid market risk appetite fluctuations, real on-chain usage has not contracted proportionally, and the functional layering and user behavior differences among public chains remain clear.

Active Address Analysis: Solana and Ethereum Rebound, Some L2 Ecosystems Cool

According to Artemis data, January’s active address distribution shows a clear reallocation, with high-performance public chains and core mainnets rebounding, while some L2s and sidechains experience cooling. Combining chart and monthly average data, Solana’s daily active addresses continued upward, averaging about 4.46 million in January, up approximately 51% from December, with on-chain interaction intensity remaining high, indicating ongoing attraction of users and capital through high-frequency trading, meme activity, and application ecosystems. Ethereum also significantly recovered, with about 819,000 daily active addresses in January, up roughly 48% month-over-month, reflecting that market volatility has driven some asset rebalancing and settlement activities back to the mainnet, reinforcing its core clearing and value-carrying functions.【2】

Mid-tier networks generally cooled and showed divergence. Base’s daily active addresses remained relatively stable overall but declined about 12% month-over-month, indicating a cooling of previously high-frequency social and lightweight application-driven interactions. Polygon PoS saw a sharper decline, with daily active addresses down about 57%, with on-chain activity dropping from high levels to medium-low ranges. Arbitrum maintained low-level oscillation with slight decreases, showing no clear signs of recovery; Bitcoin’s active addresses also dipped slightly but with limited volatility, continuing to reflect its value transfer network nature. Overall, user activity appears to be more of a structural rotation rather than a market-wide contraction, with capital and user behavior shifting from some expanding ecosystems back to Solana and Ethereum’s core networks.

On-Chain Fee Revenue Analysis: Solana and Ethereum Lead, Base Shows Late-Stage Volume Growth

According to Artemis data, January’s on-chain fee revenue shows a layered pattern, with Solana and Ethereum remaining high, while Base exhibits increased volatility and upward movement. Data indicates Solana’s fee income has been in the top tier over the past month, mostly between approximately $800,000 and $1.2 million, with a late-month spike, demonstrating ongoing contribution from high-frequency trading, meme activity, and application engagement. Ethereum’s fee revenue shows more pronounced volatility, dipping into $200,000–$400,000 multiple times mid-month before rising again, reaching over $1 million at month-end, reflecting increased DeFi interactions, asset rebalancing, and high-value contract activity during volatile periods, leading to greater fee elasticity.【3】

Mid-tier networks show diverging revenue performance. Base’s fee income fluctuated near zero early and mid-month but surged toward nearly $1 million at month-end, indicating phase-specific hot spots or high-frequency asset issuance and trading activity. Bitcoin’s fee revenue remains relatively stable, mainly influenced by transfer demand and network congestion, with limited fluctuations. Polygon PoS and Arbitrum mostly oscillate at low levels, with occasional pulses but no sustained trend, indicating that fee capture is concentrated on high-activity, high-trade-density networks. Overall, fee income is increasingly concentrated on networks with active trading and transaction density, deepening ecosystem differentiation as capital and user activity gravitate toward platforms capable of sustaining on-chain demand.

Public Chain Capital Flows Diverge: Capital Reflows to High-Efficiency Networks, Traditional Ecosystems Under Pressure

According to Artemis data, capital flows over the past month show clear structural divergence. Capital has not expanded risk indiscriminately but has concentrated in networks with stronger capital efficiency and transactional attributes, while some traditional Layer1 and Layer2 ecosystems face ongoing net outflows, reflecting a market re-pricing based on functional differentiation.【4】

On the inflow side, Base recorded the largest net inflow, becoming the core recipient of recent capital and attention. This liquidity movement is closely related to the recent AI Agents social trend: narratives around agent-native social scenarios like Moltbook rapidly translate into on-chain issuance and trading demand. Infrastructure platforms such as Clanker on Base facilitate asset deployment and liquidity onboarding, forming a “content–attention–token issuance–trading” feedback loop, attracting speculative and early valuation capital to Base. Meanwhile, Polygon PoS, Injective, and OP Mainnet also saw significant net inflows, indicating capital preference for low-cost, highly interactive, and efficient networks; Hyperliquid’s continued inflows reflect active trading capital in high-efficiency matching environments.

On the outflow side, pressure mainly comes from Ethereum, Starknet, and Arbitrum. Ethereum’s net outflow suggests some funds shifting from high-valuation, settlement-focused core networks to more execution-oriented environments. Outflows from Arbitrum and Starknet reflect internal re-selection within the Layer2 space. Overall, capital flows show a “narrative-driven attention shift + capital efficiency prioritization,” marking a phase of structural rotation where investment logic shifts from single-ecosystem narratives to detailed evaluation of network usage and capital turnover efficiency.

Key Bitcoin Metrics Analysis

Over the past month, BTC and ETH have shown clear weakening trends, with 4-hour structures shifting from oscillation to a predominantly bearish bias. BTC’s multiple moving averages have been breached with only weak rebounds, still under pressure from the MA system; ETH’s performance is weaker, with accelerated declines leading to sideways consolidation at low levels, with bearish divergence among moving averages. Volume-price structures show increased volume during declines and reduced volume during rebounds, indicating cautious bottom-fishing and insufficient trend recovery momentum, with short-term dominance by the bears.

In this context, on-chain data from cost distribution, profit-taking strength, and holder structure show consistent features: short-term holder (STH) cost basis has cooled significantly, with prices oscillating around breakeven zones, indicating market digestion of prior profits; profit-taking momentum has rapidly declined, shifting from high realization to a wait-and-see and recovery phase. Chip structure shows decreasing profit share, with short-term loss positions rising but not out of control, mainly reflecting profit-taking by short-term holders, while long-term holdings remain relatively stable. Overall, the market is transitioning into a phase of “high-level cooling” rather than trend reversal.

BTC Short-Term Holder Cost Basis Cooling, Price Oscillates Around Breakeven

According to Glassnode data, the short-term holder (STH) cost model shows that after BTC’s recent retreat from overheated zones, prices have gradually approached and oscillate around the STH cost band, indicating that previously over-extended short-term positions are beginning to realize profits, but no systematic breakdown of the cost basis has occurred. Prices are mainly distributed between +1 standard deviation and the cost line, suggesting market sentiment has shifted from euphoric to relatively neutral and cautious, with short-term funds moving from chasing gains to waiting and structural rebalancing.【5】

Structurally, the STH cost band maintains an upward slope, reflecting rising average entry costs for new positions. Prices have not fallen into the -1 standard deviation cooling zone, indicating short-term holders are still largely in profit or marginally in profit compression, without triggering panic selling. Historical comparisons show that as long as prices stay above the cost basis, the market tends toward high-position chip redistribution and consolidation rather than entering a bear trend.

Overall, BTC is in a “post-overheat cost rebalancing” phase. The overheating risk above has been released, but the key breakeven zone below has not been breached, so the market is more likely to oscillate around the cost basis to facilitate chip turnover. As long as the overall profit structure of short-term holders remains intact, the medium-term bullish trend remains plausible, with current conditions favoring a healthy cooling within the cycle rather than a trend reversal.

BTC Profit-Taking Momentum Rapidly Declines, Market Shifts from High Realization to Observation and Recovery

According to Glassnode data, the Realized Profit/Loss Ratio (90-day moving average) has recently fallen sharply from high levels, indicating that realized profits are shrinking quickly, and the market is transitioning from a phase of large-scale profit realization to a more restrained trading environment. Previously, the ratio remained well above 1, representing significant profit-taking at high prices; its rapid decline suggests active selling pressure has weakened, and short-term selling momentum is cooling.【6】

From a cycle perspective, the ratio has fallen but not into a clearly loss-dominated zone (below 1), implying the market has not entered panic capitulation but remains in a “profit digestion” stage typical of late-stage bull markets. Historically, similar levels often correspond to high-level consolidation with slowed upward slope and increased volatility, with trend structures still dominated by bulls. As long as the ratio stays above breakeven, on-chain capital remains profitable, and selling pressure is mainly from active profit-taking rather than forced capitulation.

Overall, BTC shows signs of “profit realization cooling and a gradual rebalancing,” with short-term upward momentum constrained by prior profits. Before widespread loss-driven selling occurs, the medium-term trend remains healthy, with the market likely to digest profits through time and oscillation rather than a systemic downturn.

BTC Profit-Chip Share Declines, Short-Term Loss Positions Rise but Not Out of Control

According to Glassnode data, the long-term and short-term holder profit/loss supply ratios (7-day moving average) show that recently, the proportion of short-term holders (STH) in loss has increased significantly, while long-term holder (LTH) loss share remains low. This indicates that the recent price correction mainly compressed short-term profit margins, with pressure concentrated on recent entrants at higher prices. Long-term chip structure remains stable. Current losses are mainly “marginal unrealized losses,” not indicative of widespread systemic distress.【7】

Structurally, historical cycles show that when STH loss share rises but LTH remains mostly profitable, the market is often in the mid-to-late bull phase with oscillation and shakeout. Short-term funds are gradually exiting during volatility, transferring chips to lower-cost, longer-hold groups, helping to solidify the mid-term trend. No signs yet of LTH entering significant loss zones, suggesting the market has not entered a “broad panic” environment necessary for trend reversal.

Overall, BTC is undergoing a “short-term unrealized loss expansion and long-term structural stability” rebalancing. Short-term volatility may remain high, with prices oscillating and shifting chips, but as long as losses are mainly confined to STH and not spreading to LTH, the mid-term bull structure remains resilient. Current conditions resemble internal risk release and chip redistribution within the cycle rather than a trend breakdown.