The transaction costs on the Ethereum (ETH) network are very low today. So low, in fact, that the costs involved in making a transaction on the network are at their lowest point in about two years. This while the amount of transactions that are done and the number of active users actually only continues to increase.
Ethereum gas fees
The transaction costs on Ethereum, which are also gas parties have actually been declining since the November of 2021. At the time, the ‘DeFi summer’ and the huge hype about non-fungible tokens (NFT) to an end. This also meant that the Ethereum network was less heavily burdened.
It is precisely this load on the network that determines the level of the transaction costs. If the network is used so busy to the point of congestion, gas fees can get quite high. So high, in fact, that using the network for everyday transactions is almost unprofitable.
Especially NFT platforms like OpenSea and decentralized exchanges like Uniswap were last year responsible for the amount of the Ethereum gas fees.
Often, the level of transaction costs on Ethereum during periods of heavy use is seen as one of the biggest shortcomings of the network.
Influence of the ETH merge?
Of course, not long ago, the long-awaited merge launched on the Ethereum network with which the network switched to proof of stake. On the eve of this update, many people thought that this update would also change the problematic gas fees.
That was not the case, and this was never the intention of the update. Recently in the Ethereum news read that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin a roadmap shared which clearly showed that the scalability of the network should be significantly improved in future updates. If this scalability is scaled up, the sky-high transaction costs of last year will most likely be a thing of the past.