The more Ethereum prices rise, the more it effects the Ethereum gas fee spike. The price of Ethereum over the past two weeks has substantially increased. Ethereum is currently trading at $1,542 per unit. The cost of moving ether and ERC20 tokens has climbed along with Ethereum’s worth in US dollars.
Gas Fee Spike
On January 1, 2023, ether gas fees were $2.93 per transfer, according to data from bitinfocharts.com. Today 18 days later, the cost of sending Ethereum is 54% higher at $4.52 per transaction.
A similar pattern can be seen in the median-sized Ethereum fee chart on Bitinfocharts.com. On January 1, 2023, the median ether fee chart on bitinfocharts.com showed that sending Ethereum costs about $1.06 per transfer. The same chart on Wednesday showed a rise of 0.0013 ETH per transfer or approximately $1.96 using current ether exchange rates. This shows that the median Ethereum fee jumped 84% from January 1.
The “Gas Tracker” on etherscan.io also shows a rise since the beginning of the year. Even though the gas measurement is typically approximated at a significantly lower rate.
That same day the web portals fee tracker showed the high priority ether gas fees were $0.30 per transfer or 20 gwei. After 18 days, the high priority fee remained at 20 gwei or $1.14 per ETH transaction. This was an increase of approximately 280%.
Transaction Fees
Opensea’s transaction fees increased from an average of $1.12 per transaction on January 1 to $3.99 today. Previously, a swap on a decentralized exchange (dex) platform costed $2.87. Today, a trade on a dex like Uniswap costs $10.28. Initially, the cost of sending an ERC20 token, such as USDT or USDC, was $0.84 per transaction; the cost was $3.02.
Going further, the price of layer two transactions have also increased. On January 15, Bitcoin.com reported the transaction rise of Arbitrum and Optimism. According to Dune Analytics, the Arbitrum network transfer rose from $0.101 per transfer to $0.188 per transfer.
Similar to how Optimism’s network transaction fees were $0.1410 per transfer three days prior, they are now $0.3039 per transaction on the L2 chain of Optimism as of January 18. The recent increase in ether gas prices has broken the Ethereum network’s record cheap fees.