Ethereum transaction fees hit all-time high

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The total transaction fees on the Ethereum network hit an all-time high of $6.87 million on August 12, shattering the previous all-time high of $4.55 million that was reached during the ICO boom in December 2017. 

Why are ETH fees so high?

https://twitter.com/Josh_Rager/status/1293760986520969217

According to some, Ethereum fees went as high as $1,292 per tx on August 12. Unfortunately, fees this expensive often deter individuals from using whatever platform or making whatever transaction they originally intended to make.  

The Ethereum fees have rocketed due to the popularity of DeFi platforms and protocols, many of which run on top of Ethereum. However, the Ethereum network struggles due to scalability issues, and can only handle about 15 transactions per seconds. That being said, individuals looking to make transactions on ETH must continually bid up the transaction fee attached to their TX to get their transaction into the next block. Although the average transaction fee on ETH has fallen to $5.67 per TX as of press time, you can expect this issue to get worse as time goes on, as there is no foreseeable scaling solution in sight for ETH.

Port Ethereum to Bitcoin

Which will be the scalability solution for ETH?

— Jack 🇪🇸 🇭🇰 🇸🇬 🇨🇦 (@liujackc) August 13, 2020

Ethereum is in desperate need of a scaling solution, and while many people think that the solution will come in the form of ETH 2.0, it would make much more sense for Bitcoin (BSV) to be Ethereum’s scaling solution. Unlike ETH 2.0—whose launch has been continually delayed because for all we know, ETH 2.0 doesn’t exist in a tangible way—Bitcoin can solve all of Ethereum’s scaling problems. 

With no artificially imposed block size or transaction throughput limit, BSV could be Ethereum’s sidechain. It makes much more sense to use a protocol that already exists like Bitcoin, which has been proven to work at scale, than to waste resources such as human capital and money on the development of ETH 2.0, which clearly isn’t working.

I don't think I ever remember seeing gas prices this high… DeFi is going to wreck Ethereum… pic.twitter.com/3NZ9XaVfHL

— LukeYoungblood.eth 🛡️ (@LukeYoungblood) August 12, 2020

Regardless, Ethereum is running out of time to find a scaling solution, the popularity of DeFi platforms seems to be the equivalent to the popularity of ICOs in 2017. So unless ETH finds a way to scale and a way to scale fast, ETH users should expect transaction fees to rocket in the near future.