Worth it? Trader spends $120K on gas buying $155K worth of a memecoin

A azygous trader conscionable spent a staggering 64 Ether — equivalent to $118,000 — successful state fees purchasing $155,000 worthy of a memecoin called Four (FOUR).

According to an update from the fashionable blockchain tracking work ‘Whale Alert’, the lone trader paid an astonishing $119,157 successful Ether (ETH) to implicit a Unsiwap commercialized that swapped 84 Wrapped Ether (WETH) for 13.8 cardinal FOUR tokens.

A interest of 64 #ETH (119,121 USD) has conscionable been paid for a azygous transaction!https://t.co/3w4UD0AZbw

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) May 8, 2023

It appears arsenic though the trader voluntarily accrued their state interest to velocity up the transaction clip to acquisition the memecoin. According to pseudonymous Twitter idiosyncratic @FlurETH, the trader successful question is sitting connected 133 ETH ($245,667) successful unrealized nett connected their concern successful the memecoin.

High state interest transaction details. Source: Etherscan.

Gas fees connected the Ethereum web person go the taxable of statement amongst the crypto community, with a fig of salient Etheruem advocates praising the heightened enactment for its gross generating effects and semipermanent deflationary unit connected the proviso of Ether.

— sassal.eth (@sassal0x) April 20, 2023

Others person leveled disapproval astatine the fees, claiming that unless the web becomes much “affordable” wide adoption volition ne'er beryllium achieved.

As reported by Cointelegraph, one of the main drivers down the summation successful Ethereum state fees comes from the caller meme coin hysteria, driven successful ample portion by the frenzied buying of a new memecoin called Pepe (PEPE). At the clip of publication, the mean Ethereum transaction interest is sitting astatine $22.98, the highest level recorded since May 12, 2022 wherever the mean interest reached a highest of $31.11.

Average Ethereum transaction fees successful the past year. Source: Etherscan.

Another large crushed down the drastic uptick successful state fees comes from the Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) trading bot that is front-running memecoin trades en masse. The notorious MEV bot and “Sandwich attacker, known lone by the pseudonym jaredfromsubway.eth, has been profiting importantly heightened web use.

A sandwich onslaught occurs erstwhile an attacker “sandwiches” a victim’s transaction betwixt their ain 2 transactions successful bid to manipulate the terms and nett from the user.

On April 18, Jared cleared a whopping $950,000 successful profits from the sandwich attacks. Jared has besides been 1 of the largest state spenders connected the Ethereum network. On April 20, Jared utilized 7% of the full state connected the web and spent 455 ETH successful transaction fees.

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