Ethereum News: Transaction Fees Visit 2020 Lows – Reason & Impact

The latest Ethereum news reveals that the network’s transaction fees have been declining and recently pushed to levels last seen in 2020.

This warranted a recap of how the Ethereum network performance and the findings were rather interesting.

While Ethereum news may have predominantly focused on market sentiment’s impact on price action, network performance offered some confidence.

The network has a notorious reputation for charging exorbitant fees, but declining transaction fees offers a welcome change.

As reported in latest Ethereum news, ETH price action has been significantly discounted in the last 4 months and this may have contributed a great deal to declining gas fees.

However, lower fees are traditionally attractive especially in times when the network activity is on the rise.

On the other hand, the lower gas fees may also be as a result of its recent Pectra upgrade. Lower transaction fees and higher network efficiency were among the benefits that it promised to offer.

Transactions in April Pushed Higher Than 2024’s Q4 Levels

Ethereum critics have been keen on its network activity especially under the recent disruptive market conditions.

Interestingly, the network’s highest daily transaction count in the last 12 months occurred earlier this month.

Ethereum has so far maintained transactions steadily above $1 million per day. Transactions surged as high as $1.43 million on 7 April, which was the highest level observed since January 2024.

Based on the transaction data, it was clear that network activity remained healthy even though investor sentiment leaned heavily on the side of caution.

DEX volume also maintained decent activity over the last few weeks despite cooling down significantly.

According to DeFiLlama, Ethereum DEX volume clocked in at $1.47 million in the last 24 hours.

The DEX volume cooled down compared to its 3-month highs. However, its recent figures still highlight healthy network activity.

ETH Accumulation at Play?

Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency ETH recently bounced back above $1500 after previously dipping as low as $1,383.

Some predicted the possibility that it could dip below $1,000 if market conditions remained unfavorable for the bulls.

Sell pressure has since eased off, allowing ETH to avoid further value erosion. Its $1,592 press time price tag was still heavily discounted (61%) from its December peak. That big of a discount was inevitably bound to start attracting demand.

Historical concentration data confirms that ETH whales have been accumulating ETH on the way down.

For context, whales held roughly 60.36 million ETH which was equivalent to 42.97% of supply as of 1 January. That figure has since climbed to 66.81 million ETH or 46.04% of supply as of 17 April.

Meanwhile, ETH investor balances dipped from 15.02 million coins or 10.69% of supply to 13.56 million coins or 9.34% of supply during the same period.

Retail balances had slight dip from 65.1 million ETH (46.34%) to 64.76 million ETH or 44.62%.

Based on the above data, it was clear that ETH retail traders and investors were selling off their coins due to uncertainty in the market. Meanwhile, whales have been growing their balances during the same period.

Meanwhile, long term holder balances recently reached a new ATH of 112.63 million ETH.

The accumulation by whales and long term holders confirmed that recent market conditions paved the way for a shake-down from weak hands to diamond hands.

Long term holder characteristics also tend to favor the network in more ways than one.

For example, many long term holders opt to stake their coins to earn passive yields on the way up.

The number of depositors in ETH staking contracts just soared to 223,520 addresses.

The cumulative amount sent to staking surged to 60.34 million which was also a new historic peak.