Ethereum (ETH): Q3 2025 Activity and Financial Report
October 16, 2025
In this post
In this quarterly report, we analyze Ethereum's performance in the third quarter of 2025: financial analysis (price trends, spot ETFs, treasury companies), analysis of on-chain metrics (activity, fees, supply, foundation treasury), ecosystem analysis (TVL, DeFi protocols, stablecoins, rollups), major news, and the outlook for the coming fourth quarter.
Financial analysis of Ethereum
ETH price performance
The third quarter of 2025 marked a strong rebound for Ether (ETH). The start of the year had been particularly difficult: ETH lost nearly 60% in a few weeks, even dipping below 1,400 dollars, a level not seen since the previous bear market.
After an initial bounce at the end of Q2, ETH benefited from a strong summer. The price moved from roughly 2,400 dollars to 4,150 dollars during Q3 2025, a gain of more than 72%. ETH also posted an intraday high above 4,950 dollars at the end of August, setting a new all-time high.
The rebound was not uniform. July and August carried most of the performance, driven by inflows into spot ETFs and by Ethereum treasury companies. In September, crypto markets consolidated on macro headwinds and ETH ranged between 4,000 and 4,800 dollars.
Beyond the USD performance, ETH also clawed back ground versus Bitcoin. After a long decline, the ETH/BTC ratio rose by more than 60% in Q3 2025, regaining the 0.035 level that had been lost in January 2025. This remains far below the highs of the previous bull cycle.
Spot ETH ETFs
One of the main drivers of ETH’s rally was the confirmation of strong demand for US spot Ethereum ETFs, with spillover effects that exceeded expectations.
Between July 1 and October 1, 2025, spot Ethereum ETFs’ total assets under management (AUM) rose from 10.13 billion dollars to 27.63 billion dollars, an increase of 173% over the quarter. This is the strongest progression since launch.
| Issuer | AUM start of Q3 2025 | AUM end of Q3 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| BlackRock | 4.35 Bn $ | 15.85 Bn $ | +264% |
| Grayscale | 2.81 Bn $ | 4.38 Bn $ | +56% |
| Fidelity | 1.23 Bn $ | 3.68 Bn $ | +199% |
| Grayscale Mini | 1.27 Bn $ | 2.78 Bn $ | +118% |
| Bitwise | 0.27 Bn $ | 0.50 Bn $ | +87% |
| VanEck | 0.12 Bn $ | 0.27 Bn $ | +126% |
| Franklin Templeton | 0.03 Bn $ | 0.09 Bn $ | +161% |
| 21Shares | 0.02 Bn $ | 0.046 Bn $ | +101% |
| Invesco | 0.02 Bn $ | 0.039 Bn $ | +72% |
| Total | 10.13 Bn $ | 27.63 Bn $ | +173% |
Data indicates that Q3 2025 recorded 10.04 billion dollars of net inflows across spot ETH ETFs. By comparison, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded 8.75 billion dollars of inflows, for a market value roughly five times larger.
BlackRock continues to dominate, capturing close to 60% of new quarterly inflows, about 6 billion dollars, ahead of Fidelity at 1.9 billion dollars and Grayscale Mini at 1.3 billion dollars. VanEck, Bitwise and Franklin Templeton products also attracted steady inflows, supporting broader institutional demand.
Ethereum Treasury Companies
Q3 2025 confirmed the rise of a trend that began earlier in the year: direct accumulation of ETH by listed companies, similar to the Bitcoin treasury strategies popularized by MicroStrategy and adopted in recent months by other firms.
Ethereum Treasury Companies are now a meaningful pillar of institutional demand for ETH. According to Blockworks Research, 14 listed companies holding ETH in treasury are identified: 11 in the United States, 2 in Japan and 1 in China.
They now hold a combined 4.36 million ETH, up from 1.2 million ETH at the start of Q3 2025, a 260% increase in three months. This represents about 3.6% of total supply, with an aggregate value near 20.7 billion dollars as of September 30. The movement is still concentrated, with three companies holding more than 80% of the publicly disclosed ETH.
| Rank | Company | ETH held | Valuation (USD) | Share of supply | Key note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) | 2.65 M ETH | 12.05 Bn $ | 2.2% | Largest institutional holder, aggressive accumulation since July, stated target of 5% of total supply. |
| 2 | SharpLink Gaming (SBET) | 742,673 ETH | 3.38 Bn $ | 0.62% | 95% of holdings staked or in liquid staking; income-generating treasury strategy. |
| 3 | The Ethereum Machine (ETHM) | 495,405 ETH | 2.25 Bn $ | 0.41% | Formerly Dynamix Corp., full pivot to tokenization and restaking. |
| 4 | Coinbase Global (COIN) | 136,782 ETH | 621 M $ | 0.11% | Stable since Q2; large indirect exposure via client staking. |
| 5 | Bit Digital (BTBT) | 121,076 ETH | 550 M $ | 0.10% | Completing BTC to ETH treasury rotation; +380% over the quarter. |
New entrants in Q3 2025 include ETHZilla Corp. (ETHZ) with 102k ETH, Galaxy Digital with 90k ETH, BTCS Inc. and FG Nexus (formerly Fundamental Global) with roughly 70k and 50k ETH respectively, as well as smaller yet symbolic positions from GameSquare Holdings, Intchains Group, Exodus Movement and Circle Internet Group.
Notably, Ethereum Treasury Companies do not just hold ETH. They use staking and restaking to generate yield, even as staking integration in spot ETFs remains pending:
- BitMine: in an August 15 communication, the company stated that its ETH is staked across validators and diversified into restaking products.
- SharpLink: in its Q2 2025 report, the company explained that 95% of ETH is staked, partly via liquid staking protocols.
- The Ethereum Machine: documentation outlines a model combining staking and yield optimization via DeFi.
These three cases already account for more than 80% of identified holdings, around 3.9 million ETH. Annualized yields range from 3.5% to 5% depending on exposure and custody setup. This supports ETH’s positioning as a productive yield asset beyond its speculative store-of-value role.
Ethereum on-chain metrics
On-chain activity
After a slower first half of the year, driven by speculative rotation toward Solana and memecoins and a broad crypto correction, Ethereum on-chain activity picked up again in Q3 2025.
Daily transactions averaged about 1.56 million, up 9% versus Q2 2025. This moderate growth indicates a gradual return of user and developer engagement and points to more qualitative, less speculative demand for blockspace.
Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem has reached a mature phase. The historical protocols are now heavyweights, acting as entry points for new market participants. Newer protocols continue to innovate with fresh products and features. Above all, the ecosystem is increasingly interconnected, which benefits Ethereum as a whole.
This maturity translates into more stable and healthier growth. Activity is less driven by euphoria and narratives and more by real network usage from increasingly professional actors.
Unique active users show the same trend. Ethereum averaged roughly 485,000 daily active addresses, up 12% quarter over quarter. Stablecoin activity accounts for the majority of on-chain usage.
Fees and impact on ETH supply
Transaction fees remained historically low throughout the quarter. This is a direct consequence of lower mainnet blockspace demand due to blobs and larger effective block sizes.
Total fees paid in ETH declined 11% in Q3 2025, although the nominal dollar amount rose 6% as the price of ETH increased.
Lower fees mechanically reduced the effective EIP-1559 burn. Average daily burn stayed below issuance during Q3 2025, resulting in net inflation for Ether over the period:
- Average issuance: 4,100 ETH per day
- Average supply change: +750 ETH per day
- Total supply: 121.1 million ETH, up 0.22% quarter over quarter
In short, Ethereum remained slightly inflationary for the third consecutive quarter. Layer 2 activity benefited as fees fell sharply, to the detriment of fee capture on mainnet.
Ethereum staking
Staking continued on an upward trajectory in Q3, supported by price recovery and the rise of institutional yield products. By the end of Q3 2025:
- 36.8 million ETH were staked, up from 35.7 million at end-June (+3.08% QoQ)
- 30.4% of ETH supply was staked, a 0.8 percentage point increase
- 152 billion dollars of ETH were staked in value terms
The distribution remained broadly stable. Lido continued to lead with 24.7% of total staking, followed by Etherfi, Binance and Coinbase. Restaking protocols regained ground with a 6% share, up from 3% at the start of the quarter.
Net staking yield (issuance plus MEV minus fees) held near 3.6% APR, broadly unchanged versus Q2. This reflects the offset between lower network fees, which compress MEV rewards, and a higher ETH price, which lifts the nominal value of rewards.
Ethereum Foundation treasury
The Ethereum Foundation’s treasury stood around 974.4 million dollars at the end of Q3 2025, slightly above the roughly 910 million estimated at Q2, partly reflecting the appreciation of ETH.
Breakdown at quarter end:
- Majors (ETH, BTC, stETH): 861.7 million dollars, 88% of total
- Other assets (RWA, DeFi tokens): 106.18 million dollars, 11%
- Stablecoins (USDC, DAI): 6.55 million dollars, 1%
This allocation is consistent with the policy outlined at the end of Q2 2025: maintain 85% to 90% in major crypto assets while steadily allocating more to DeFi to directly support the ecosystem.
The Foundation also confirmed a 2.5-year operating runway, with an annual spending cap at 15% of treasury, declining toward 10% by 2027.
Analysis of Ethereum DeFi
Total TVL
After a first half marked by volatility and partial liquidity drain, Ethereum DeFi moved back into solid expansion in Q3 2025. Total value locked rose from roughly 83.2 billion dollars in early July to 114.9 billion dollars by the end of September.
This was the strongest quarterly increase since Q1 2024. The rise was concentrated in July and August alongside spot market strength and the launch of new yield products. September brought steadier deposits and a mild pullback as markets consolidated.
Beyond the headline number, TVL composition shifted:
- Liquid staking and restaking (Lido, Etherfi, EigenLayer) now represent more than 45% of total TVL, up from 37% the prior quarter.
- Yield and rate-derivative protocols (Pendle, Ethena) saw the fastest relative growth, about +70% QoQ, on the back of the income-generating narrative.
- Lending and credit (Aave, Maple, Fluid) advanced more gradually, consistent with a cautious return of on-chain leverage.
Consolidated data from eight leading protocols on Ethereum points to the following trends:
| Category | Protocol | TVL change (QoQ) | Main chains (avg Q3 share) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liquid Staking | Lido | +16% | Ethereum 97%, Arbitrum 1.2%, Base 0.8% |
| Restaking | EigenLayer | +61% | Ethereum 100% |
| Liquid Restaking | ether.fi | +54% | Ethereum 94%, Base 4%, Arbitrum 2% |
| Yield & rate derivatives | Pendle | +72% | Ethereum 62%, Arbitrum 28%, Blast 7% |
| Stable yield | Ethena | +44% | Ethereum 55%, Base 31%, Arbitrum 10% |
| Blue-chip lending | Aave | +29% | Ethereum 70%, Arbitrum 22%, Base 5% |
| Institutional credit | Maple | +23% | Ethereum 89%, Base 6%, Optimism 3% |
| DEX / lending | Fluid | +18% | Base 48%, Ethereum 41%, Blast 6% |
DEX activity on Ethereum rebounded strongly in Q3, mirroring TVL and ETH price dynamics. Aggregated daily volumes averaged about 4.52 billion dollars, with a peak at 13.66 billion dollars on August 12, comparable to prior cycle highs.
Fluid was a notable mover, approaching 30 billion dollars of monthly volume in September, roughly one third of Uniswap’s, with strong traction on stablecoin pairs on Ethereum.
Overall, Ethereum TVL is back to qualitative growth, driven more by structural accumulation in staking and durable yield than by short-lived speculative spikes.
Stablecoins
The supply of stablecoins on Ethereum recorded a strong and synchronized rebound during Q3 2025, moving in tandem with the recovery of DeFi activity and the expansion of on-chain liquidity. The total stablecoin supply rose from 126.87 billion dollars at the beginning of July to 157.63 billion dollars by the end of September, representing a quarterly increase of 24.2%.
This increase of more than 30 billion dollars marks a liquidity return comparable to the major expansion phases of 2021-2022. Above all, it highlights a shift in how liquidity is being allocated on Ethereum :
- Institutional and corporate treasuries are rebuilding on-chain positions as confidence returns.
- Yield and staking protocols increasingly convert stables into productive ETH exposures such as stETH, eETH and USDe.
- Layer 2s lower transaction costs, making it easier to park stable liquidity in low-turnover strategies.
USDT and USDC continue to dominate, together accounting for more than 80% of stablecoin capitalization on Ethereum. Among the biggest movers, Ethena’s USDe grew 202% in Q3 2025 and set a new market cap high above 14 billion dollars.
Rollup economics
Since the April 2024 upgrade that introduced blobs (proto-danksharding), the cost and revenue model of Layer 2 rollups has been fundamentally transformed. The cost of posting transaction data to Ethereum has dropped dramatically, significantly boosting the profitability of these networks.
Before this upgrade, rollups had to publish transaction data via calldata, a method that was costly, inefficient, and limited in scalability. Blobs introduced a new, temporary, and compressible data space specifically designed for Layer 2 data posting, allowing a more efficient and cheaper process.
The impact has been twofold:
- For rollups: the cost of data posting on Ethereum dropped by nearly 90% on average. This reduction allowed them to lower end-user fees drastically while improving their net profitability.
- For Ethereum: the flip side has been a sharp decline in on-chain revenue from data publication fees, mechanically reducing the effective EIP-1559 burn and thus the deflationary pressure on ETH.
Key figures for Q3 2025:
- Aggregated net revenues across major rollups: 24.08 million dollars
- Total spending on Ethereum (data costs): 0.58 million dollars
- Overall net margin: +23.5 million dollars
The fall in data costs and the resulting shift of value capture from Layer 1 to Layer 2 have led to a noticeable reduction in the amount of ETH burned through transaction fees particularly those generated by rollups. As a consequence, ETH supply has turned mildly inflationary again.
In short, the blob mechanism has made rollup activity more sustainable and profitable while structurally redistributing Ethereum’s economic flows. Mainnet has evolved toward a role of settlement and verification, while Layer 2s have become the main vectors of user activity and fee generation. This new equilibrium confirms Ethereum’s transition toward a modular and multi-layered economy.
Key Developments and Updates
The third quarter of 2025 was marked by several major structural projects: the preparation of the Fusaka upgrade, the continued effects of Pectra, the launch of new initiatives focused on privacy and artificial intelligence, and the strengthening of Ethereum’s governance framework.
Technical progress and protocol upgrades
- Fusaka Upgrade
Scheduled for December 2025, the Fusaka upgrade has been the main focus of Ethereum’s development teams. It brings together eleven EIPs designed to improve scalability, data availability, and node resilience.
Among the key proposals, EIP-7594 (PeerDAS) introduces peer-based data availability sampling, which reduces the workload on validators and enhances rollup performance. EIP-7825 raises the block gas limit to 150 million units, while the implementation of Verkle Trees prepares the transition toward a lighter and faster synchronization model for clients.
A dedicated Fusaka devnet was launched in July, followed by two public testnets in September and October. The EIP set was frozen on August 1, and mainnet activation is expected between November 5 and 12, just before Devconnect Buenos Aires. This update also sets the foundation for Glamsterdam, planned for 2026, which could reduce block times to six seconds via EIP-7782.
- Ongoing impact of Pectra
Deployed in May 2025, the Pectra upgrade continues to show tangible effects on network performance and user experience.
EIP-7251 raised the maximum validator stake limit to 2,048 ETH, optimizing capital management for node operators. EIP-7702 introduced native account abstraction, allowing externally owned accounts (EOAs) to temporarily act as smart accounts-enabling sponsored transactions and easier wallet recovery. Lastly, EIP-6110 reduced validator activation delays to around 13 minutes, streamlining the onboarding process.
These changes led to an average reduction in gas fees between 37% and 53% depending on use case, and further boosted Layer 2 adoption, which now accounts for around 60% of DeFi transaction volumes.
- “Trillion Dollar Security” initiative
In August, the Ethereum Foundation launched Phase 2 of its “Trillion Dollar Security” initiative, dedicated to wallet usability and security. The goal is to make Ethereum capable of safely hosting over one trillion dollars in on-chain assets without compromising user experience.
This phase focuses on eliminating blind signing, building an open-source smart contract vulnerability database, and developing prevention tools against common exploit patterns.
Ethereum Foundation initiatives
- Privacy Stewards roadmap
In September, the Foundation unveiled its “Privacy Stewards” roadmap, which aims to make privacy a native feature of the Ethereum protocol. The plan includes private transfers via PlasmaFold L2, confidential voting mechanisms, ZK-based identity primitives, and stronger protection against RPC data leaks.
This direction aligns with the “Lean Ethereum” vision articulated by Vitalik Buterin-pushing for a minimal, formally verifiable, and quantum-resistant protocol. Over time, STARK-based algorithms are expected to replace traditional ECDSA signatures.
- Launch of the dAI team
The Foundation also established a new “dAI” (decentralized Artificial Intelligence) division to explore the integration of autonomous agents on Ethereum. The goal is to position the network as an economic coordination layer for decentralized AI systems.
Early deliverables include contributions to Google’s AP2 agent payment protocol, the introduction of ERC-8004 “Trustless Agents”, and the A2A x402 extension for ETH-based inter-agent payments and communication. A functional prototype was tested on an internal testnet at the end of September.
- Interoperability and user experience
In parallel, the Foundation reinforced its efforts toward interoperability and user experience. Work is focused on cross-chain access lists, ZK-EVM compatibility between rollups, and the reallocation of block slots to increase Layer 1 capacity without compromising decentralization. The goal is to make cross-layer interaction seamless and to ensure a unified experience across the Ethereum ecosystem.
Conclusion and Outlook
The third quarter of 2025 was broadly positive for Ethereum. Financially, ETH’s regained momentum served as a key catalyst for renewed user and institutional engagement after months of relative underperformance. More importantly, the DeFi ecosystem has reached a level of maturity that firmly establishes Ethereum as the leading platform in the sector.
Legacy protocols continued to strengthen their dominance while emerging ones brought innovation through increasingly sophisticated and interconnected products. The result is an ecosystem that now caters not only to retail users but also to professional and institutional participants.
At the same time, Ethereum’s strategic focus on Layer 2 ecosystems has reshaped its economic profile. While this has reduced fee revenue for the main network, it has improved scalability and efficiency, and shifted more value capture toward the rollup layer. The protocol’s slight inflationary trend is now an accepted trade-off for sustainable growth and broader usability.
Meanwhile, the Ethereum Foundation continues to advance its key initiatives, wallet security and UX improvements, native interoperability through intent-based design, and privacy integration via the Privacy Stewards team.
Together, these developments point toward the same long-term trajectory: Ethereum is becoming a lean, modular, and resilient protocol where each layer serves a specialized purpose. The main chain is consolidating its role as the ultimate settlement and trust layer, while Layer 2s handle execution and scale.
This philosophy called “Lean Ethereum” encapsulates a forward-looking vision: a simple, secure, and verifiable protocol designed to endure technological and economic challenges. As 2025 draws to a close, Ethereum stands more efficient, more institutionally integrated, and more strategically aligned than ever before.
