Ethereum Gas Fee Spikes as ETH Breaks New Highs
Spike in Gas Fees Caused by Rising ETH Prices
As of 05:45 UTC, the average and median transaction fees on Ethereum have reached as high as $23.43 and $11.77, respectively. The last time Ethereum broke its transaction fee record was a month ago on Jan. 11, hitting an average of $19 per transaction.
The spike in transaction fees has been largely caused by the rising price of ETH. Ether price after struggling to break its 2017 ATH, finally exceeded its record high of reaching a new ATH of almost $1,700. At the time of writing, the ETH price has dropped slightly from its ATH, trading at $1,630.
The higher transaction fees have even made it more expensive to use DeFi apps, such as Uniswap, which tend to charge even higher fees for making swaps between different coins. Besides, transactions that use Ethereum-based coins, such as DAI, tend to have higher transaction fees than sending Ethereum itself.
Ethereum Miners Earning 4 Times More than Bitcoin Miners
Following the surge in higher gas fees and Ether price, Ethereum miners have similarly earned over $22.75 million in fees over the last 24 hours. Data indicates this is over four times more than Bitcoin (BTC) miners ($5.116 million). On average, both Ethereum and Bitcoin miners are currently earning $15.81 million and $4.485 million per day, respectively.