Share this article

Decentralized Finance Frenzy Drives Ethereum Transaction Fees to All-Time Highs

Average transaction fees broke all-time highs as median fees hover just below its high.

Updated Mar 6, 2023, 3:37 p.m. Published Aug 13, 2020, 1:21 a.m.

Average and median Ethereum transaction fees since July 2015

The average fee per transaction on Ethereum reached $6.04 Wednesday night, according to Blockchair, the highest fees since 2015.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW

Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Long & Short Newsletter today. See all newsletters

By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Median transaction fees, which have stayed just below historic highs of $3.03, currently sit at $3.00.
Fees hovered below $1 until mid-July when transaction fees started to soar.
Fee increases coincide with surging activity on popular decentralized financial protocols like Uniswap.
At least three similar decentralized finance applications are included on a list of protocols with the highest levels of network utilization, curated by Etherscan.
While Ethereum developers have toyed with numerous technical options to reduce fees by scaling the network's transaction capacity, a possible fix remains months away.

Transaction Fees Ethereum DeFi

Zack Voell

Zack Voell is a financial writer with extensive experience in cryptocurrency research and technical writing. He has previously worked with leading cryptocurrency data and technology firms, including Messari and Blockstream. His work (and tweets) has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Independent and more. He owns bitcoin.

William Foxley

Will Foxley is the host of The Mining Pod and publisher at Blockspace Media. A former co-host of CoinDesk's The Hash, Will was the director of content at Compass Mining and a tech reporter at CoinDesk.