Ethereum Average Gas Fee Drops to $0.01: What is the Reason?

The gas fee on Ethereum has dropped to record low levels with the average transaction now costing only $0.01, which hit as high as $11 earlier this year in January. 

As per Ethereum Gas Tracker data from Etherscan, the average gwei – a denomination unit of ETH which tracks gas amount – currently sits at 0.31 for a simple Ethereum transaction. This stands at the lowest point in past few years and as ETH price is also down, the amount merely accounts to $0.01, though still higher than that of Solana and other layer 2 networks. 

This lowest gwei for a transaction makes a token swap cost $0.19 while NFT sale costs $0.33 as per Etherscan data. The cost of different types of transactions differ as each requires separate calculating and data payload. 

Ethereum gas fee has been one of the much talked about matters in the crypto space as it has been at the center of the DeFi ecosystem. The drastic increase in gas fee has also been one of the key issues Ethereum faces when the blockchain network is in high use. 

Why Has the Ethereum Gas Price Dropped? 

The recent decrease in Ethereum gas aligns with the overall decline in network activity. In the current crypto market, most of the tokens are launched on Solana and the majority of liquidity is fragmented across multiple blockchain ecosystems, which was once connected to Ethereum only. 

While Ethereum has been dominating in the smart contract space since its inception, the recent competition from emerging blockchain networks is making it lag behind. Although Ethereum is trying to overcome such challenges, its complex architecture design is making it hard and lengthy. 

Also read: Vitalik Buterin Proposes RISC-V to Replace Ethereum’s EVM