Ethereum L1 Fees Heats Up Social Media – Big Opportunity For Avalanche?

The Ethereum scaling issues have recently been a hot topic on social media. Zhu Su, CEO of Three Arrows Capital, a notable crypto VC company, recently announced he withdrew his support from the project, criticizing the state in which the chain is now. Could this be the opportunity Avalanche has been waiting for?

Ethereum Issues Discussed in Social Media

The high gas fees that users have to pay to transact on Ethereum L1 are made former supporters of the chain to be very vocal in social media about the problems these cause. The CEO Three Arrows Capital, Zhu Su, wrote on Twitter:

“Yes I have abandoned Ethereum despite supporting it in the past. Yes Ethereum has abandoned its users despite supporting them in the past. Ethereum culture suffers massively from the Founders Dilemma. Everyone is already far too rich to remember what they originally set out to do.”

Yes I have abandoned Ethereum despite supporting it in the past.

Yes Ethereum has abandoned its users despite supporting them in the past.

The idea of sitting around jerking off watching the burn and concocting purity tests, while zero newcomers can afford the chain, is gross.

— 朱溯 ? (@zhusu) November 21, 2021

Su’s point was that, for newcomers, the chain is basically useless due to its high fees. Ryan Selkis, CEO of Messari, shares Su’s view saying:

“It doesn’t matter if Ethereum is a security anymore because the only people who can afford to use it are accredited anyway.”

https://twitter.com/twobitidiot/status/1462258576370679812?s=20

Enter Avalanche

Avalanche is often said to be the most prominent challenger for Ethereum in the cryptocurrency market right now. While the network does offer lower fees for transacting, many have noted that this is due to the lower usage it experiences compared to Ethereum. Emin Gun Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs commented:

“Keep hearing this: ‘but but but some day Avalanche will be as slow as Ethereum.’ No. Avalanche brought us the biggest breakthroughs in consensus and bridging. We will address lesser engineering problems without batting an eyelid.”

I keep hearing this: "but but but some day Avalanche will be as slow as Ethereum."

No. Avalanche brought us the biggest breakthroughs in consensus and bridging. We will address lesser engineering problems without batting an eyelid. https://t.co/jtqpjCurb5

— Emin Gün Sirer? (@el33th4xor) November 21, 2021

The proponents of the Ethereum smart contract chain have focused on scaling the chain with L2 solutions based on rollups, like Arbitrum and Optimism, while some users have moved to use other chains like Avalanche and Solana, as high fees are likely to remain.

At the time of writing AVAX is trading at $133, with 2% and 41% gains on a daily and a weekly chart, respectively.