Trader pays almost $120k in ETH as transaction fees rise

Gas fees on the Ethereum network seem to be high again after a trader paid 64 ETH, worth around $120,000, for a single transaction.

64 ETH for one transaction 

Data from Etherscan revealed that a trader fadedface.eth bought 84 ETH worth of the meme token FOUR on Uniswap V2, and paid 64 ETH (worth over $119,000 at ETH’s current price) in transaction fees.

The $FOUR meme coin which has a 24-hour trading volume of $72.3 million, has been the recent rave in the crypto community. The high gas fee comes as a result of increased activity on the Ethereum blockchain.

This increased activity is due to the frenzy over meme coins like PEPE. The frog-themed meme coin which launched in April 2023, saw its market capitalization rise to $500 million, and has a current market capitalization of nearly $1 billion, according to CoinGecko. 

Ethereum’s main layer can become congested during these events and the congestion can lead to an uptick in gas fees. This situation is what amplified calls for total layer 2 adoption. 

Meanwhile, one of the end goals of the Ethereum roadmap is the ability to scale to a level where the network can handle 100,000 transactions per second. 

Apart from the Ethereum blockchain, transaction fees on the Bitcoin blockchain have also surged following the introduction of a fungible token standard called BRC-20 in March 2023. As previously reported by crypto.news, BRC-tokens surged 600% in one week, to reach $120 million.