I started using Ethereum since 2017 and I loved the technology, never had any transaction delays or high gas fees. Fast forward to 2020 when I wanted to send $70 worth of ETH from my Binance account to my Kucoin account and ended paying over $35 as gas fees. 2020 was the year we can call the beginning of the Defi era. Lots of DEFIs sprung out during that period, most of them got built on the Ethereum blockchain thereby driving the demand for Ethereum up. I didn’t know this about Ethereum before use, hence, the reason behind my mistake in using Ethereum for transaction and paying f high gas fees.
After this experience I avoided Ethereum and went for other better alternatives.
When the demand for Ethereum goes up or rather when the rate of Ethereum transactions increase, more blocks are expected to be validated. This will therefore increase transaction fees because more people are willing to bid higher fees to let their transactions get processed faster. It was fun when it newly started but people obviously got tired of the high gas fees and needed an alternative. We had other blockchain that came to the rescue, like BNB SmartChain, polygon network, Solana Blockchain and others.
NFTs were not left behind, open sea processed lots of transactions and contributed a lot in the transaction volume of NFTs in the world. This also contributed to the high gas fee spike, we saw NFTs getting minted for high prices. I have some Ethereum airdrop NFTs I haven’t claimed because of the high gas fees. I guess now the fees are lower I will be able to claim them now. A friend once complained about some tokens he couldn’t claim because of the high gas fees converting the token to Ethereum before sending to an exchange.
Recently, opensea has been getting declines in trading volume, aside opensea we also have other DEFI platforms which are also getting decline in their trading volume. We still have the consistent people on the blockchain who are constantly utilizing the blockchain thereby making the blockchain active. But trust me this is the right time to see the blockchain as blessing. Because, transactions are not much, minimal and considered the best time to take the advantage to get lower transaction fees or rather transact on the blockchain for cheap gas fee.
If you have those airdrops or NFTs, this is considered the best time to get them claimed for really cheap gas fees. This is the first time the gas fee of Ethereum is being this low since the last 7 months.