In the past week, the price of Ethereum has seen a 14% increase. Earlier this month, the value of ETH was way lower than investors hoped for. Ether traded below $1000 before recovering slightly around mid-July.
However, at the moment, the leading DeFi token is valued at over $1700. With Ether gaining close to 100% from its 2022 low, traders and investors have shared some of their optimistic price expectations for the remainder of 2022.
ETH Gas Fees Still Low
It is worthy to note that despite the recent surge in the price of ETH, gas prices are still low. According to data from Bitinfocharts.com, the gas price of Ethereum still averages around $3. Gas prices for the blue-chip asset have been steadily declining in recent times.
Sometime in May, gas prices peaked, reaching an average of $11. However, this surge in transaction fees could not be sustained. Shortly after, the crypto market crash contributed to a decline in traders’ interest. NFT activities also reduced drastically, and the whole market went pale.
While the recent increase in Ether’s value has been impressive, gas prices indicate that on-chain activity is currently low. Ethereum’s on-chain activity is no way near the peaks of 2021.
In May 2021, transaction fees in the Ethereum blockchain averaged $70 per transaction. In June 2021, the average fees on the network reduced slightly. However, on-chain activities were still high, and users paid an average of $55 per transaction.
The gas fee peak achieved in 2021 may never be achieved again. Although Ether is still a valuable asset, and the network still has millions of active users, high gas fees may be a thing of the past in the coming year.
In 2023, the Ethereum network will implement “the surge” upgrade, which will scale the network and increase throughput. This will also reduce transaction fees in the long run. In the meantime, though, Ether users are focused on “the merge,” which is set to take place on the 19th of September.
