Ethereum gas fees down – The renewed activity on the network Ethereum led to a spike in gas costs in May. This increase, mainly caused by the strong comeback of “memecoins”, is now recording a significant drop.
Fees: the sinews of war on Ethereum
Despite the switch to Proof of Stake at the end of last year, Ethereum remains plagued by congestion. Indeed, with each new trend, and explosion of activity, the network faces major congestion problems.
It goes without saying that this congestion itself generates a radical increase in transaction costs. So the average gas cost peaked at 155 Gwei on May 5a figure that had not been recorded since May 2022.
The manager ? A memecoin with the image of a frog, in other words, another shot of the degens. PEPE is a memecoin launched at the end of April. The latter reached 1.15 billion dollars in just a few weeks and generated widespread enthusiasm on Ethereum.
The enthusiasm was such that it even overtook Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of social media engagement.
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Return to normal for fees
Fortunately, this phenomenon will not have clogged the network for too long. Thus, according to data from IntoTheBlockEthereum transaction fees dropped by more than 16% in one week.
Looking back, we see a 80% reduction in transaction fees over one month, from $27.62 on May 5 to $5.50 on June 4. These figures now appear to be stabilizing around mid-April levels, with gas prices around 35 Gwei.
The collateral victims of the increase in fees
Ethereum’s second layer solutions, intended to relieve the mainnet, have also suffered from this increase in transaction fees.
Noticeable spikes have been observed on zk-proof based L2s, such as Polygon zkEVM And zkSync Era. The cost of a single trade on these rollups temporarily spiked to highs ranging from $2 to $11, and even as high as $30.
In total, the layers 2 spent $16.2 million to publish security proofs on the Ethereum mainchain. A direct consequence of rising fees. At the same time, these solutions continue to attract more and more users.
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