The cryptocurrency market's latest momentum is being driven by two distinct but reinforcing developments: a tokenomic overhaul that sent Ethena's ENA up 84% and fresh data showing Ethereum Layer 2 networks now process 94% of all transactions across the combined Ethereum L1 and L2 ecosystem.
Ethena's ENA rally was not part of a broad altcoin bid. The Ethena Foundation directly bought out early venture capital holders who had been selling into each monthly token unlock. The remaining investor allocations were consolidated into a single October 2, 2026 unlock date, removing the recurring monthly supply overhang that had capped ENA near its $0.07 all-time low from June. From roughly $0.08 a month ago, ENA traded near $0.1748 by September 6, with its market capitalization back above $1.76 billion.
Governance voters and the Ethena Risk Committee also approved a fee switch that will route 95% of net protocol revenue into ENA buybacks and burns. However, the buyback mechanism remains off until Ethena's synthetic dollar USDe reaches a $7.5 billion supply threshold, with additional increases at $10 billion, $15 billion, and $20 billion. Researchers backtested the model and estimated it could have produced about $52.7 million in annualized buybacks, equivalent to more than 3% of ENA's market cap.
Ethena also launched the beta of Ethena Pay on Avalanche on September 1, offering up to 6% savings yields and 5% to 10% cashback. Access to the highest yield and cashback tiers requires users to lock meaningful ENA balances, potentially turning app usage into steady token demand. Santiment data confirmed a spike in activity: active addresses roughly tripled, trading volume surged nearly 20x, and daily social mentions jumped from a handful to 50-60 at the peak. But the demand did not fully persist. Daily protocol fees collapsed to $56.91, the OI-weighted funding rate drifted toward 0.0023%, and total value locked grew by a modest $160 million to $4.719 billion. On the 4-hour chart, ENA held above the 0.382 Fibonacci level at $0.1465, with resistance near $0.1749; a close below $0.1465 would invalidate the breakout.
In the Ethereum ecosystem, Layer 2 momentum is accelerating. L2 networks processed approximately 29.95 million transactions per day, compared with 1.97 million on Ethereum mainnet, according to growthepie. When measured by computational throughput, L2s account for 97% of total Ethereum ecosystem throughput, processing roughly 92.4 million gas units per second versus 2.52 million on mainnet. Base leads with about $14.51 billion in secured value, or 41% of Ethereum L2 value, while Arbitrum holds roughly $12.47 billion. Robinhood Chain climbed to $2.8 billion after a more than 150% increase over 30 days. ARB surged more than 120%, aided by activity around Robinhood Chain.
In DeFi, Ethereum L2s processed about 337 million transactions over the past 30 days, representing around 99% of combined L1 and L2 DeFi transaction activity. Uniswap alone generated more than 57 million L2 transactions. Yet capital remains concentrated on Ethereum mainnet, which holds roughly $162 billion of stablecoins versus only about $12 billion across L2s. ETH traded near $2,500, recovering from roughly $2,390 earlier in the week, while Ethereum ETFs extended an inflow streak. Trader Daan Crypto highlighted that Ethereum, L2s, and DeFi had led major crypto sectors over the previous week. The split emerging is that L2 networks handle activity, while Ethereum mainnet remains the capital and settlement layer.
