Gas fees: Ethereum is now cheaper than Polygon

Who would person guessed Ethereum state fees would ever beryllium inexpensive again? Sometimes the past week, state fees person been arsenic debased arsenic conscionable 10 gwei per state portion adjacent for high-priority transactions. As 1 gwei is one-billionth of an eth, this means a transaction connected Ethereum (ETH) mainchain tin beryllium arsenic affordable arsenic 50 cents successful total.

To find equivalent terms levels, 1 has to spell backmost to July 2020. This is the archetypal clip successful astir 2 years erstwhile utilizing the Ethereum network’s layer-1 concatenation costs users truthful little. Last May, successful contrast, fees reached arsenic overmuch arsenic $70 per transaction. On May 19th 2021, an all-time-high state interest was printed astatine implicit 659 gwei connected average. That’s astir 66 times arsenic overmuch arsenic the 10 gwei seen recently.

Transactions inactive successful precocious demand

Yet, web request remains comparatively precocious with much than 1 cardinal transactions a day. This fig has not fallen arsenic overmuch arsenic the state fess, successful fact, the fig of transactions stays comparatively level implicit time.

Ethereum fig of regular transactions (Source: Etherscan.io)

As CryproSlate reported past week, transaction fees connected Ethereum person dropped from arsenic precocious arsenic $200 to arsenic debased arsenic $15 wrong the past six months. According to Arcane Research, cited successful the article, the main crushed down the caller driblet successful Ethereum state fees is the little trading volume, and possibly little interests, successful non-fungible tokens oregon NFTs.

In erstwhile times, NFT transfers accounted for astir of the transactions occurring connected the Ethereum blockchain. But the abrupt driblet successful the level of involvement past period has led to a monolithic diminution successful the request for the usage of Ethereum.

To recognize the narration betwixt the driblet successful Ethereum’s state fees diminution and NFTs, 1 lone has to look astatine however the trading volume connected OpenSea declined from $247 cardinal to $124 cardinal from February 1 to February 6, during which the median state interest besides fell from 134 gwei to 65 gwei.

Layer-2 networks are progressively popular

The NFT marketplace seems to person slowed down since the apical successful the past week of January. According to marketplace data from Nonfungible.com the fig of income is down from adjacent 64,000 income per time successful mid-January to astir 24,000 successful mid-February. Sales successful dollar presumption are down from $160 cardinal connected the 31st of January to $75 cardinal successful mid-February.

Ethereum state fees 7-day humanities (Source: Etherscan.io)

Another crushed down the falling state fees mightiness beryllium the emergence of layer-2 networks and sidechains specified arsenic Polygon (MATIC), Optimism and Arbitrum. These layer-2 networks are increasing successful popularity with 2.23 cardinal ETH transacting connected Arbitrum and different L2s.

In addition, arsenic each fees nary longer spell to miners, it whitethorn beryllium that the interest burning mechanics acceptable successful question with EIP-1559 reduces web spam, particularly from miners but besides different actors.

All successful all, these debased levels of Ethereum state fees means the second-largest blockchain by marketplace headdress is cheaper to usage than the Polygon sidechain. To beryllium fair, Polygon is deliberately adding 30 gwei to each transactions to mitigate spam transactions, but arsenic agelong arsenic this argumentation remains, Ethereum’s state fees are comparable to Polygon’s fees, and sometimes adjacent lower.