- Ethereum fees have risen quietly, reaching levels not seen since May 2023.
- Ethereum’s price surge of 15.6% since mid-September overshadows concerns about rising transaction fees.
- Trader discussions remain muted as fees, now $3.23, are still low compared to March’s $15 peak.
Ethereum transaction fees have been steadily increasing in the past couple of weeks, which typically invites intense scrutiny among the crypto community. However, investors are willing to bear these additional costs as long as their portfolios are trending upward. This might be the reason why overall sentiment have so far remained relatively unaffected towards ETH, Santiment noted.
The second biggest crypto asset has risen over 15% since September 15th. A significant amount of traders trying to recoup their losses after purchasing near the peak of the market at $3.7K to $3.9K in May. But over the last few weeks, Ethereum’s fees have seen a jump last seen on the ecosystem since late May. While there has been an increase in network activity on this encouraging price rebound, the discussions around these rising fees remain relatively muted.
WETH’s Growing Influence on Ethereum Fees Reflects DeFi’s Expansion
Santiment’s social volume data did not observe a notable spike in conversation about Ethereum’s fees, which indicates that traders are not overly sensitive to these changes. This could be because the average fee of $3.23 is still relatively low compared to the much higher fees seen earlier in the year, particularly in March when fees peaked over $15 during market highs.
One of the top catalysts for these fees is Wrapped Ethereum (WETH), which continues to dominate ETH’s fee leaderboard. WETH plays a key role in Ethereum’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, as it’s a “wrapped” version that makes interacting with decentralized applications easier. The dominance of WETH in fee contributions indicates that traders are heavily utilizing DeFi platforms, likely engaging in liquidity pools, trading, and other financial activities that require WETH as a base asset. This suggests that the current fee increase could be driven by increased DeFi activity, which is generally a positive sign for the ecosystem’s health.
Overall, this current mild rise in fees is unlikely to be a cause for concern as traders seem more focused on recovering their portfolios after previous high buys rather than reacting to the fee increases. As long as the fees remain manageable, Ethereum is likely to continue thriving without much disruption.
