Meme coins season is driving Ethereum and Bitcoin transaction fees up as investors are largely dealing with the two networks. Many developers use the Ethereum network to host the coins as smart contracts, which means a spike in the usage of the smart contracts increases traffic in the network.
Meme coins keep stealing the show
Bitcoin and Ethereum transaction fees are with the former hitting levels last recorded two years ago. Ethereum’s transaction fees have also spiked to 87 Gwei due to the ongoing meme coin frenzy. The last time such high gas fees were recorded on the Ethereum network was in May 2022.
The total fees paid on the Bitcoin blockchain reached $3.5M on May 3, a jump of 400% from late April. Now, data from Ycharts indicate that the median Bitcoin transaction fees range around $7.2.
This rise in Bitcoin and Ethereum transaction fees is credited to the continued frenzy of the upcoming meme coins like Pepe Coin. This meme coin has been moving the internet over the past few days as new millionaires were made from significantly low initial investments from early and mid-April 2023. As a result, the transaction numbers of other meme coins like Wojak have been unticked, increasing the daily transactions recorded in the crypto space.
Bitcoin’s BRC-20 standard, a protocol designed after Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard and used for the transaction of fungible tokens on the Bitcoin network, is also to blame for the uptick of ots gas fees. This standard was introduced in March 2023 by a pseudonymous on-chain analyst, Domo.
Despite the uptick in the transaction fees of the two networks, they are still lower than their ATH records. Keep watching Fintech Express for updates on Bitcoin, Ethereum, meme coins, and other crypto and fintech-related news.