After Fusaka upgrade, Ethereum addresses increased by 290,000 daily, Vitalik announces that the "Impossible Triangle" is now history

After the Ethereum network experienced the “Fusaka” upgrade in early December 2025, on-chain activity saw a dramatic resurgence. According to Glassnode data, the number of new addresses per day surged by 110%, reaching approximately 292,000, marking the fastest growth rate since the 2024 bull market. Market participants interpret this growth as driven by structural adoption fueled by technological upgrades, rather than short-term speculation.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin further claimed that, through the combination of zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (ZKEVM) and PeerDAS technology, Ethereum has successfully solved the long-standing “Impossible Triangle” in blockchain industry—achieving a fundamental breakthrough in decentralization, security, and high scalability.

Data Analysis: How the Fusaka Upgrade Triggered On-Chain Growth

On December 3, 2025, the Ethereum mainnet successfully deployed the network upgrade codenamed “Fusaka” (Fulu-Osaka). The on-chain data in the following month provides the most direct evidence of this upgrade’s effectiveness. Glassnode’s on-chain indicators show that the daily new address count on Ethereum continued to rise from low levels before the upgrade, maintaining strong growth momentum throughout December and into early January 2026, ultimately stabilizing at around 292,000 new addresses per day. This figure not only represents an astonishing 110% monthly increase but also signifies that the Ethereum network is absorbing new users at a pace not seen since the last bull cycle.

This growth pattern has sparked widespread discussion among analysts. Unlike previous address growth driven by market frenzy or a star project, which often involved sharp volatility, this growth appears steady and sustained. The market generally interprets this as a sign of “structural adoption” driven by infrastructure improvements. The core of the Fusaka upgrade is the introduction of “PeerDAS” (Peer Data Availability Sampling), a technology designed to reduce the cost of data submission from Layer 2 networks to the Ethereum mainnet. In simple terms, it makes operating Layer 2 scaling solutions built on Ethereum cheaper and more efficient. The resulting cost reduction and improved user experience directly benefit end-users and developers, lowering barriers to entry for new users in DeFi, blockchain games, and other applications, thereby stimulating genuine network demand.

Key On-Chain Data After Fusaka Upgrade

Daily New Addresses: ~292,000

Monthly Growth Rate: 110%

Growth Nature: Structural, non-speculative adoption

Core Upgrade Technology: PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling)

Direct Impact: Significantly reduces Layer 2 data submission costs

Current ETH Price: Back above $3,200

While not every new address represents a long-term active user, such large-scale and continuous address creation activity is undoubtedly an early indicator of network health and attractiveness. Historical data shows that waves of new address growth typically precede significant increases in transaction volume and liquidity depth. More importantly, this complex upgrade was smoothly implemented without causing any on-chain instability or network interruptions, which greatly enhances institutional confidence in Ethereum’s roadmap execution and reduces perceived “protocol upgrade risks.”

Technical Breakthrough: Vitalik Declares the “Impossible Triangle” Has Been Broken

Amid the on-chain good news, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a major article providing a theoretical explanation for this technological victory. On social media, he announced that, through the synergy of ZKEVM and PeerDAS, Ethereum has effectively solved the long-standing “Impossible Triangle” problem in blockchain—simultaneously achieving high decentralization, strong security consensus, and high throughput (bandwidth).

To understand the significance of this declaration, we need to revisit the evolution dilemma of blockchain architecture. Vitalik explained using early networks as examples: peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent have enormous bandwidth and full decentralization but lack any consensus mechanism to verify state authenticity; Bitcoin achieved revolutionary decentralization consensus but relies on “every node verifying everything,” resulting in very low throughput. Ethereum’s new architecture breaks this pattern, with the core innovation being the separation of “division of labor and verification.”

First, ZKEVM technology has achieved production-level breakthroughs. It allows certain nodes (such as Layer 2 sequencers) to perform large amounts of computation and generate cryptographic proofs (zero-knowledge proofs) attesting to the correctness of these computations. Other nodes only need to verify these proofs quickly, without redoing the entire calculation. Data shows proof generation time has been shortened from 16 minutes to 16 seconds, with a 45-fold cost reduction. Currently, 99% of Ethereum blocks can be verified within 10 seconds on standard hardware. This addresses the “computational scalability” issue.

Second, PeerDAS technology solves the “data scalability” problem. Traditionally, nodes need to download entire block data to verify availability. PeerDAS allows nodes to randomly sample a small portion of block data and, with high probability, confirm all data is available. This significantly increases data throughput without requiring each node to store all data, thus maintaining decentralization.

The combination of these two technologies means Ethereum is evolving into a “verification layer,” shifting from performing all work itself to efficiently and reliably verifying work done by others. Vitalik emphasizes that this is not a gradual improvement but a transformation of Ethereum into “a new and more powerful decentralized network.”

Market Response and Future Challenges: Price Rebound and Supply Pressure

Technological breakthroughs and on-chain growth must ultimately reflect in asset prices and market recognition. Currently, the market has responded positively. ETH price has successfully reclaimed the critical $3,200 level, coinciding with the accelerated growth of new addresses and overall positive sentiment in the crypto market, indicating that investors are reassessing Ethereum’s fundamental value.

However, optimism should be tempered with caution. On-chain supply data reveal potential resistance. Glassnode’s analysis indicates that a significant portion of ETH holders acquired their positions between July and October 2025. As the price rises above $3,200, many of these holdings are approaching break-even points. From a behavioral finance perspective, this could lead to concentrated profit-taking or short-term sell-offs, creating supply-side resistance that needs to be absorbed.

Therefore, the first quarter of 2026 will be a critical window to assess whether this “Fusaka-driven growth” is sustainable. Market participants are closely watching whether the rising address creation rate can translate into sustained trading demand, gas fee consumption, and actual Layer 2 activity. Ideally, wallet activity continues to grow while average transaction fees remain stable or decline, demonstrating that Ethereum’s scalability improvements are effective and that growth is organic rather than a bubble.

The Ethereum Foundation has also set strict security benchmarks for this technological leap. They require the relevant teams to achieve 128-bit provable security by the end of 2026, with intermediate milestones such as reaching 100-bit security by May 2026. George Kadianakis of the Foundation’s cryptography team warns: “If an attacker can forge a proof, they can forge anything: mint tokens out of thin air, rewrite state, steal funds.” This reminds everyone that performance improvements must not come at the expense of cryptographic integrity and security.

Future Roadmap: A Four-Year Vision for Distributed Blockchain

Vitalik Buterin does not stop at celebrating current achievements; he further sketches a four-year, until 2030, grand technical deployment roadmap. This roadmap can be understood as a gradual, steady transformation of the “Impossible Triangle” theoretical model into the reality of Ethereum’s mainnet.

Phase 1 (2026): Laying the Foundation. The focus this year is to implement a significant gas limit increase through mechanisms like “balance attack restrictions” and “separating proposers and builders,” without relying on ZKEVM. The community will also have the first opportunity to run ZKEVM validation nodes, gaining familiarity and deploying this new technology.

Phase 2 (2026-2028): System Optimization and Migration. Developers will undertake low-level optimizations such as gas re-pricing and changes to state data structures. A key step is migrating execution load from traditional Calldata to Blob, preparing for future large-scale throughput increases.

Phase 3 (2027-2030): ZKEVM Becomes Mainstream. During this period, Vitalik expects ZKEVM validation to become the primary method for block validation. As the architecture stabilizes and security is thoroughly validated, gas limits will be significantly and unimaginably increased, fully unleashing the network’s transaction processing capacity.

Beyond this mainline, Vitalik also envisions a more advanced “Holy Grail”—a distributed block construction system. In this ideal scenario, a complete block is never built by a single entity or location but collaboratively assembled in a distributed manner. This would greatly reduce centralization risks during block creation and increase fairness among global participants. However, he also acknowledges that increasingly complex protocol designs may introduce new “trust transfer” issues, where only a few experts can fully understand the system, which could contradict the original goal of “trustlessness.”

Industry Impact and Ecosystem Outlook: From Financial Institutions to Next-Generation Applications

Ethereum’s technological progress is attracting attention far beyond the native crypto space, with notable signals from traditional financial giants. JPMorgan announced a pilot project for a tokenized money market fund worth $100 million on Ethereum; Deutsche Bank disclosed development of its own Layer 2 network based on ZKsync. Meanwhile, under Singapore’s regulatory sandbox, 24 financial institutions are testing Ethereum-based asset tokenization solutions. These cases demonstrate that Ethereum is becoming the preferred platform for institutional-level financial infrastructure innovation.

Vitalik Buterin, amidst the technical enthusiasm, also issued a calm warning. He cautioned that the Ethereum ecosystem should not indulge in chasing short-lived trends like “tokenized USD” or “political Memecoins.” Instead, he advocates building more applications that can “operate off-test”—meaning they can continue functioning even if original developers disappear; and that remain stable even if external infrastructure (like cloud providers) are attacked. This points to higher demands for robustness and autonomy of decentralized applications.

Looking ahead, as the Fusaka upgrade benefits continue to unfold and the ZKEVM roadmap advances, several clear trends are expected: First, Layer 2 competition will shift from “TPS race” to a comprehensive comparison of “cost, security, and user experience.” Second, teams that leverage low-cost, high-bandwidth environments to create truly sticky and practical “killer apps” will become the focus of the next cycle. Finally, Ethereum’s role as the “global settlement layer” and “highest security guarantee layer” will be further solidified, with its layered ecosystem of Layer 2s and specialized chains likely becoming the standard paradigm for Web3 adoption. The on-chain data surge triggered by this upgrade may well be the first clear signal of this new era.