Ethereum fees nearly double as 24-hour trading volume tops $50B

Published at: Jan. 5, 2021

Ethereum network fees continue to climb, with the average value topping out at $17.43 per transaction, according to data from YCharts. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, average fees were at about $10.20 on Monday.

The $17.43 per transaction constitutes an all-time high in average Ethereum fees, beating the previous record of $12.54 back in September during the height of decentralized finance mania. As of press time, Ethereum transaction fees have declined significantly, with a median fee of $1.63, based on data from Etherscan, ETH Gas Station and Gas Now.

Yield-chasing on multiple DeFi platforms added to the transaction load of stablecoin transfers, which made the Ethereum network even more actively used than in previous times. As a result, average fees skyrocketed, often to the detriment of some DeFi market participants.

Indeed, Monday’s Ethereum fee spike caused DeFi nonfungible-token project Aavegotchi to postpone its mainnet launch. The project also stated that it might consider an “L2 first” launch, probably on Matic Network.

The launch of Ethereum 2.0 — the network’s upgrade to a proof-of-stake consensus — is expected to improve the blockchain’s scalability and drive down average transaction costs. While the process has already begun, some expect the upgrade to take years to reach full actualization. Some commentators say layer-two scaling solutions are a better bet for combatting rising transaction costs.

Monday’s fee spike also coincided with Ether (ETH) setting a new 24-hour trading volume high above $53 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap. 

The surge in Ether transaction fees and trading volumes comes ahead of the launch of CME ETH futures later this year. Back in 2017, when CME announced its Bitcoin (BTC) futures, BTC price and transaction fees spiked amid expanding interest from investors.

Ether is still about $300 shy of its $1,430 all-time high achieved back on Jan. 8, 2018. The second-ranked crypto by market capitalization is up over 660% in the last year.

Tags
Ethereum
Defi
Fees
Related Posts
3 reasons why REN price is up 340% from its July swing low
Interoperability has become one of the driving themes within the crypto market and as the blockchain ecosystem evolves into an interconnected web of layer-one protocols, the importance of communication and efficiency among decentralized applications (dApps) will also increase. Ren (REN), a blockchain protocol designed to provide interoperability and liquidity between different blockchain platforms, has started gaining traction over the past month and a half as activity in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has been on the rise. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after reaching a low of $00.41 on Aug. 9, the price of REN has …
Nft / Sept. 16, 2021
Bitcoin and Ethereum fees slump to six-month low
The transaction fees of Bitcoin and Ethereum have slumped to six-month lows as the markets cool after the recent crypto downturn. According to BitInfoCharts, the average price of performing a transaction using Bitcoin has fallen from an early-April all-time high of $62.77 to around $7.20 — an 88% drop over just six weeks. The falling Bitcoin transaction fees appear to have been driven by a decline in overall market activity, with daily volumes evaporating from more than $67 billion on May 10 to $30 billion as of this writing, according to CoinGecko. The meteoric 2021 crypto bull run has seen …
Nft / June 1, 2021
$99 Gas Fees on Ethereum Are Crippling DeFi’s Growth
The surging popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols on Ethereum (ETH) has contributed to skyrocketing fees, with the network processing an all-time high of $6.87 million in total fees yesterday. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Synthetix (SNX) founder and CEO, Kain Warwick warned that high fees were impacting the growth of DeFi, stating: “In the last three months, we’ve gone from an environment where DeFi was expensive to use and a little bit slow, to now, [where] for a lot of people it’s prohibitively expensive.” Ethereum fees have spiked nearly 100% over the past 24 hours as congestion saw transaction expenses smash …
Technology / Aug. 14, 2020
Ethereum gas fees drop to lowest levels since August 2021
Gas fees for transactions on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain have dropped to the lowest levels since August. But they’re still not cheap. According to data sourced from Coinmetrics and shared by CryptoRank Platform, the seven-day moving average cost of an Ethereum transaction as of March 9 totaled $11.14, placing it back amongst the levels recorded mid-last year before it surged dramatically to as high as $55 at the tail end of 2021. The cost of transactions on the @Ethereum network has not been this low since Aug 2021. Notably, gas prices surged after staying in this range for about 3 …
Blockchain / March 10, 2022
Arbitrum transaction activity rockets 550% since August: Delphi Digital
Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Arbitrum has seen a massive surge in activity since its Nitro update in August, having just clocked around 62% as many transactions as the Ethereum base layer. In a Nov. 1 report, crypto research firm Delphi Digital noted that as of the week ended Oct. 24, Arbitrum’s number of total transactions has increased by 550% since August, citing data from Dune Analytics. This week, @arbitrum had ~62% as many transactions as Ethereum L1. pic.twitter.com/DyuDNAjRGz — Delphi Digital (@Delphi_Digital) November 3, 2022 In an earlier Tweet, Delphi Digital initially phrased Arbitrum as accounting for 62% of all …
Blockchain / Nov. 3, 2022