Ethereum’s gas fees and trading volumes are going down.The network’s hash rate is surging.
Ethereum’s Gas Fees.
Ethereum’s gas fees have dropped dramatically in the previous five days, as the currency’s price approaches its all-time high of $4,465, which was established on Wednesday this week.
Ethereum is now trading for $4,626 at the time of writing. The average transaction charge on Ethereum is $37.19, a 33.5 percent decrease from Tuesday’s average gas fee of $56.
Furthermore, the network’s hash rate continues to increase to new highs. The network’s computing power is determined by the hash rate. The hash rate of Ethereum reached 812,769 GH/s on Monday. According to Etherscan, by Wednesday that figure ballooned to a new high of 821,207 GH/s.
What do the numbers actually mean?
While the hash rate has increased, reduced transaction fees could suggest waning demand, and while the price and processing power of Ethereum are currently at all-time highs, another statistic, trade volume, has declined significantly in the previous four days. On Wednesday, the total value of Ethereum exchanges was little over $21 billion. By Saturday, the amount had plummeted: Ethereum’s trading volume had decreased to around $14 billion. During that moment, Ethereum also suffered a loss of $10 billion from its market capitalization, which currently stands at around $534 billion dollars.
Still, proponents of Ethereum will point to the network’s developing NFT economy, which has attracted famous names like Marvel, Visa, and Budweiser, as well as NFT-established businesses like NBA and fantasy soccer game Sorare, this year. On Tuesday, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced that it will begin trading Ethereum micro futures derivatives in December, allowing traders to conduct considerably smaller trades than Ethereum futures contracts now allow.
Ethereum upgraded its beacon chain at the end of last month. The addition of staking to the Ethereum ecosystem pave the way for “the merge,” a still-unconfirmed date when Ethereum will abandon its energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism in favor of the more environmentally friendly trappings of a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. As a result, demand for Ethereum may have decreased slightly, and a greater hash rate may have alleviated the network’s strain. However, fees fluctuate, so there’s still lots to look forward to on Ethereum.
In addition, Ethereum is creating the groundwork for a significant network upgrade. Ethereum 2.0 promises faster transactions, fewer gas expenses, and a lower carbon footprint.
