With the surge in blockchain activity on Ethereum, gas fees on the leading smart contract network have reached historic lows, indicating a more mature and scalable infrastructure ready for complex real-world applications.
Transaction fees on Ethereum lingered at a historic low of merely 0.16 gwei, roughly $0.01 per transaction. Fees for token swaps were slightly higher at $0.15, while non-fungible token (NFT) sales were at $0.27, as reported by blockchain data aggregator Milkroad.
These low costs sharply contrast with earlier periods of heightened network activity when demand often caused fees to spike, a significant criticism of Ethereum during past cycles.
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Ethereum activity increases amid stable fees
Daily transactions on the network surged to 1.6 million on Tuesday, reaching a near one-month high last seen at the beginning of October before a record $19 billion liquidation event.
Active addresses also saw a rise, peaking at a monthly high of 695,872 on Saturday, according to the crypto intelligence platform Nansen.
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The historically low gas fees on Ethereum follow the Dencun and Pectra upgrades, both aimed at reducing transaction costs and enhancing throughput.
Launched in May, the Pectra upgrade has doubled the blob capacity of layer-2 (L2) networks, cutting transaction fees on L2s by approximately 50%. This upgrade also helped to transition more transactions from the mainnet, further lowering costs.
Ethereum’s previous major upgrade, Dencun, has similarly reduced L2 transaction fees and shifted more transactions from L1, decreasing average transaction fees by 95% a year after its deployment on March 13, 2024, according to Cointelegraph.
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