Out of every four wallets actively using Ethereum a year ago, roughly one is still showing up. That might not sound like a ringing endorsement, but in crypto, where user loyalty has the half-life of a meme coin, it’s actually the best retention rate in the industry.

A new CoinGecko analysis covering 11 major blockchains found that Ethereum posted a 26.2% user retention rate for wallets active in Q1 2025 that remained active in Q1 2026. No other chain came close on a percentage basis. But here’s the thing: percentage-based retention and absolute user numbers are two very different animals, and the gap between them tells a story worth unpacking.

The retention numbers, in context

CoinGecko’s methodology tracked wallets that completed at least five successful transactions during Q1 2025, then checked whether those same wallets were still transacting in Q1 2026. Ethereum’s 26.2% rate translated to 682,240 retained users out of approximately 2.6 million qualifying wallets.

BNB Chain retained 1,494,233 wallets over the same period. Solana held onto 1,394,873. Both figures dwarf Ethereum’s 682,240 in absolute terms, meaning those networks kept more actual humans (or bots, but we’ll get to that) transacting on-chain.

Ronin, the blockchain best known for powering Axie Infinity and other on-chain games, grabbed third place with a 19.1% retention rate. CoinGecko attributed that performance to “daily gaming loops,” which is a polite way of saying: when your blockchain’s primary use case involves habitual play-to-earn mechanics, people tend to come back.

What the study did and didn’t measure

The study explicitly did not filter out bot transactions. In an ecosystem where automated trading, MEV bots, and wash trading are common, that’s a meaningful gap. Some portion of those “retained users” across every chain are likely automated wallets running scripts rather than humans making deliberate choices.

CoinGecko also excluded several notable chains from the analysis. Tron and TON were left out due to data quality limitations or architectural constraints that made apples-to-apples comparison unreliable.

The five-transaction minimum threshold is also worth noting. This isn’t measuring casual users who bridged some ETH once and forgot about it. It’s filtering for wallets with meaningful on-chain activity, which arguably makes the retention metric more useful as a gauge of genuine engagement rather than speculative tourism.

Separately, Ethereum’s broader ecosystem showed record activity in Q1 2026, with monthly active users reaching 13.2 million. That figure measures something entirely different from year-over-year retention, but it suggests the network is still growing its top-of-funnel even as it retains a quarter of its existing user base.

Why retention matters more than you think

CoinGecko’s report specifically cited Base’s onboarding initiatives and Ronin’s gaming habits as structural drivers of retention on their respective networks. The implication is clear: retention doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because specific use cases give people reasons to return.

Look, 26% retention over a full year in an industry where protocols can go from household names to ghost towns in months is genuinely notable. But it also means roughly three out of four active Ethereum users from a year ago have stopped transacting.