Ethereum Broke Again All-Time High, While Transaction Fees Are Down
Ethereum’s gas fees have been going down fast in the past days as the price of the currency broke new all-time high of $4,736.75 according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Ethereum (ETH) trades for $4,728 at the time of writing, and the average transaction fee according to Etherscan is at $4.27.
Also Ethereum network’s hash rate continues to rise to new heights. Hash rate determines the network’s computing power. At the time of writing the figure hit a new high of 830,059 GH/s, according to Etherscan.
So what do these figures really mean?
While the hash rate has increased, lower transaction fees could indicate lessening demand, and while the price and computing power of Ethereum might be sky-high right now, another metric has dropped off considerably in the last four days: trading volume.
On Wednesday, November 3, there was just over $21 billion worth of trades made on Ethereum. By Saturday November 6, the same figure dropped down to about $14 billion. In that time, Ethereum also lost $10 billion from its market capitalization.
However the trading picked up speed just as the week came to an end. Ethereum hit new all-time high of $4,736.75, with a 24-hour trading volume of $16 billion, and a market cap of $559 billion.
What’s Coming?
Many attribute ETH’s success to network’s NFT scene, an economy which has this year attracted household brands like Marvel, Visa and Budweiser into the fold, alongside NFT-established brands, like NBA and fantasy soccer game Sorare.
On Tuesday, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange also announced that it will start trading Ethereum micro futures derivatives in December, enabling traders to make much smaller trades than current Ethereum futures contracts allow.
Ethereum is also expecting major network upgrade: Ethereum 2.0, which promises significantly higher speeds, lower gas fees and a much greener carbon footprint.
End of October 2021, Ethereum upgraded its beacon chain. The introduction of staking into the Ethereum ecosystem paves the way for “the merge”–a still unconfirmed date when Ethereum will jettison its energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanism for the greener trappings of a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
It seems that there are many interesting things to look forward to on Ethereum.
