The big stumbling block for Ethereum (ETH) on the way to mass suitability is known to be the extremely high transaction fees or “gas fees” of the blockchain network. However, since the average transaction costs have now fallen to a low of only 0.0015 ETH, this narrative is currently difficult to maintain.
With the downturn in the average transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain to only 0.0015 ETH or 1.57 US dollars, the lowest value since December 2020 is currently recorded. Since January 2021, the gas fees have been in a steady upswing, which was triggered primarily by the ongoing hype about non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) and Decentralized finance (DeFi), because these are predominantly based on the Ethereum blockchain.
Evolution of average Ethereum transaction fees. Source: BitInfoCharts
From January 2021 to May 2022, the average “gas fee” for processing a transaction on the smart contract platform amounted to just under 40 US dollars. On May 1, 2022, the inglorious high of 196,638 US dollars was even recently on the tableau, as the data from BitInfoCharts shows.
Evidence that the current downturn is organic can also be indirectly inferred from the fact that NFT sales have recently fallen to a two-year low. The NFT ecosystem had its weakest month of the year so far in June, when the number of daily sales slipped to 19,000 units and $ 13.8 million.
Number of NFT sales from July 2021 – June 2022. Source: NonFungible
In November 2021, when Ethereum users still had to complain about massive fees, founder and figurehead Vitalik Buterin was prompted to put forward a proposal to fundamentally reduce transaction fees. In his short-term solution, Buterin had suggested introducing certain limits per block in order to minimize transaction fees.
Meanwhile, Ethereum liquidity provider XCarnival was able to recover 1,467 ETH stolen through a security breach. In the course of the attack, a total of 3,087 ETH was stolen at a current value of 3.8 million US dollars.
XCarnival was attacked on June 26, 2022 and suspended part of the protocol. XCarnival officials will give 0xb7CBB4d43F1e08327A90B32A8417688C9D0B800a owner 1500 ETH bounty.
At the same time, XCarnival officials explicitly exempt the person from legal action.By XCarnival team
– XCarnival (@XCarnival_Lab) June 27, 2022
The blockchain security company Peckshield explains in this context:
“The hacker attack was successful because fully booked NFTs could still be used as collateral, which the hackers in turn abused to withdraw assets from the pool.“
