Ethereum's monthly onchain volume hits $183.7 billion in November

Ethereum's onchain volume in November reached $183.74 billion, marking its highest monthly volume recorded year-to-date. This represents the highest onchain volume on Ethereum in nearly three years, since December 2021’s $241 billion.

While this figure remains a far cry from its all-time high of $404.93 billion in May 2021, November's performance demonstrates a return to solid activity levels. It is a solid 9% increase over the previous yearly highs seen in March and nearly doubles the year's lowest onchain volume of $107.93 billion in January.

This increase is likely driven by capital rotation as market participants move down the risk curve, reallocating funds from centralized exchanges (CEXs) to onchain activities.

One example worth highlighting of this capital rotation is the rotation into NFTs, which has caused a slight resurgence in the NFT market. In November,  Ethereum-based NFT marketplaces recorded their highest combined monthly volume since June.

This comes as NFT trade volume on Ethereum has averaged $55 million per week over the past three weeks, nearly double the weekly average during the previous few months.

This is further supported by the increase in the floor prices of several notable NFT projects this month, including CryptoPunks, Pudgy Penguins and Milady Maker. In November, these projects saw their floor prices rise by 55%, 46.5% and 36.7%, respectively.

Interestingly, the 7DMA of the average transaction fee on Ethereum has been relatively low despite record yearly onchain volumes, just 1/5th of the cost seen during the previous yearly highs in March.

This discrepancy is likely due to the shifted composition of onchain transactions on Ethereum. Where March saw high-fee speculative trades such as token trades and launches, November's activity likely included more stable and high-value transfers, which typically consume less gas.

The high-volume, high-velocity, high-speculation onchain trading may also have shifted to Solana, with platforms like pump.fun leading the charge.

This is an excerpt from  The Block's Data Insights newsletter . Dig into the numbers making up the industry's most thought-provoking trends.