Gas fees on the Ethereum network have grown more than 6 times in the past month.
Users of Ethereum, one of the most powerful blockchains in the crypto world, are facing a rapid increase in gas fees as the price of the network's native cryptocurrency, ETH, skyrockets.
Over the past month, the price of Ethereum has increased by around 52%, surpassing $3.500 per unit at the time of writing. However, just like the price of this cryptocurrency, the network's gas fees have also grown, surpassing $30 for simple transactions.
According to the platform's data Bitinfocharts, the average fee for simple transactions on Ethereum is 0,0082 ETH, about $30,3 USD, currently.
On the other hand, Ethereum's block explorer Etherscan, which shows gas consumption on the blockchain, indicates that gas fees for more complex transactions, such as swaps in DeFi protocols, NFT operations, and decentralized lending operations, They range between $57 and $110 dollars, with NFT sales being the transactions with the highest fees on the network at present.
What are gas rates?
The gas fee, which is paid to validators on the chain to confirm a transaction, measures the gas consumption used in the operation, multiplied by the unit cost of gas, which is expressed in gwei, a denomination of ETH.
Since the blockchain network implemented the EIP-1559 improvement proposal, validators receive a base fee, which is calculated based on the gas used by the transaction, plus a priority fee, considered as a tip, which users pay to validators to incentivize them to include their transaction within a block in the shortest possible time. Because of this, the higher the tip, the more incentive the validator will have to include a transaction within a block on the network.
However, the problem arises when blockchain usage and demand grows, as users are forced to pay much higher priority fees in order to confirm their transactions, ultimately causing the blockchain network to become inaccessible to many users.
The high costs of using Ethereum
While Ethereum is one of the most successful blockchains in the world, it is also one of the most expensive to use. As mentioned above, the gas fee for an average ETH transaction is currently around $30,3, while the gas fee for selling an NFT is over $100. These figures are by far out of reach for a significant portion of cryptocurrency users, who are looking to the crypto industry for an alternative to make transactions faster and more accessible, without the intervention of third parties.
Ethereum is the network Pioneer in the development of smart contracts and, therefore, the leading blockchain in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. However, its high gas fees pose a problem and a challenge for the crypto community.
Based on current gas costs, users of DeFi applications such as Uniswap must pay an average of $68 for a token swap. Those who trade on lending platforms must pay fees ranging from $57 to $63 and those who want to buy an NFT token must pay up to $125 for their transaction.
As high gas fees on Ethereum have become a persistent hurdle that the network continues to deal with, developers are focusing on New solutions that increase scalability, performance and efficiency, to address this issue and improve user experience on the blockchain.
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