Yes, for the second time in the last three weeks, transaction fees at Ethereum (ETH) have shot up to new all-time highs.
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Uncontrol in Ethereum
Yesterday Glassnode reported that the Ethereum miners had set a new record by winning half a million dollars in one hour.
Rising transaction fees and congestion at Ethereum have raised concern in the crypto community.
According to data released by Blockchair, average fees peaked at $15.48 today. And, the median reached $9.35.
This is a situation that has been occurring since the beginning of June and, mainly, has been generated by the growth of DEX and DeFi protocols.
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Concerns
The main concern is the sustainability of the Ethereum in the short and long term. Average gas prices also offer a perspective on the extent to which transaction costs have skyrocketed at Ethereum, from transfers to the construction of Smart Contracts.
In fact, according to ETH Gas Station, Uniswap and Tether have spent $12.7 million and $10.5 million respectively on tariffs over the past 30 days.
“This ridiculously expensive cost becomes a heavy burden on users and an obstacle to DeFi transactions…” tweeted Da Hongfei, co-founder of NEO.
So while DeFi has been a key catalyst for the upward race we’ve seen in ETH’s pricing, it has also been a major cause of its technical problems.
This is how congestion leads to a higher number of unconfirmed transactions and almost infinite waiting times. This also generates upward pressure on rates as users pay more because of shorter waiting times.
In this sense, the community has begun to notice that the rates at Ethereum are getting out of control and, at the moment, there is no clear solution.
The problem even makes some smart contracts unusable. Which, as you know, becomes a crucial problem for the future of Ethereum.
Some of the solutions that are being considered include EIP 1559, an old proposal that is currently being tested at Filecoin. However, at the moment, there are some layer-2 solutions that offer an alternative as OMG Network.