Ethereum fees doubled in one week

Ethereum fees remain at historically high levels, and Ethereum miners are rushing to increase their capacity to profit from the network's record levels of activity.

Golden September for Ethereum

The average transaction fees on the Ethereum network - here it quotation in real time - they have more than doubled since last week, climbing to $ 11,61 on September 17 and maintaining a range of prices above $ 2 that has now lasted for more than a month, much longer than any previous peak in fees .

Ethereum's blockchain hash rate, the amount of computing power that supports the network, has also increased to levels not seen since 2018 as miners add capacity to their operations, fostering both supply and market activity. demand that have (almost) never been higher.

The fees paid by users to send tokens or interact with smart contracts on the Ethereum network serve as a measure of network activity, with higher averages resulting in more transactions on the network.

The average rate of $ 11,61 was the second-highest daily average on record, just below the record average daily rate of $ 14,58 set a few weeks earlier on September 2, according to the blockchain analytics site. BitInfoCharts.

The total amount of mining power that helps process transactions on the Ethereum blockchain is also increasing. Ethereum miners use "rigs" of connected computer graphics cards (GPUs) to produce blocks for the Ethereum blockchain, adding "hash power" to the overall pool.

Rising ETH Price?

In return, miners receive a small bulk reward of ETH, which gradually decreases, in addition to the mining fees paid by users to use the network. With fees at the highest levels ever, miners have added more and more hash power, increasing the total to around 250 terahash per second - 250 trillion attempts to find the right math and load the next blockchain block.

This figure has increased by 30% since the beginning of July according to blockchain explorer Etherscan, and the hash rate has been increasingly higher during the period from February to November 2018, when the hash rate peaked at over 290 terahash per second.

Record activity on the Ethereum network is driven by DeFi, a decentralized application system that enables unsecured, crypto-based lending services and fees for users providing liquidity for trading on decentralized exchanges.

DeFi aims to replace centralized financial institutions by means of protocols offering the same services, but managed by a community of supporters and users. With average fees at some of their highest levels ever and Ethereum miners gearing up for even greater network activity, it looks like ETH prices, too, are still a long way from the recent September 1 peak of over $ 480. , could be headed for new highs.