In terms of market capitalization, Ethereum (ETH) is the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world with a total market cap of $375 billion. In terms of percentage, it accounts for 17.4% of the total value of cryptocurrency which is pegged at $2.16 trillion. The recent price trends have shown that ETH has surged 34.3% in its value during the last month. But in the last fortnight, its value has dropped 2.1%. The more important news, however, is related to an abnormal and sudden rise in the gas fees associated with the ETH platform.
Since August 21, there is a 154.36% increase in the gas fees of Ethereum which translated into high transaction costs for users. According to latest reports, users are paying around $27.98/transaction. In case of interactions involving the Web3 platforms and smart contracts, users have to shell out an even higher amount, within a range of $300 and $1k for one transaction. NFTs on the Opensea marketplace are also charging higher ether gas fees compared to other platforms in the category
Amidst concerns of rising gas fees, experts have pinned the hopes of revival on the upcoming version of Ethereum, called Ethereum 2.0. This upcoming version is expected to solve the issue of high gas prices even as other rival blockchains such as Cardano, Polkadot, Binance Smart Chain, etc., are closing the gap with Ethereum. The competition offers far more affordable transactions as compared to Ethereum and this high price has now started impacting the popularity of Ethereum platform.
The supporters of Ethereum are heavily relying on two specific projects: Arbitrum and Optimism that will bring down the gas fees and keep the price stable for a longer period of time. These projects will make use of the optimistic rollups which will help the platform become more cost affordable. In addition to that, projects such as loopring.org, aztec.network, zksync.io, and fuel.sh also aim to lower the gas fees associated with the Ethereum platform.
