By
Bhushan Akolkar
May 10th, 2024
The Ethereum gas fee has dropped this low for the first time since July 2021.
The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) is going through strong selling pressure and we can observe a serious drop in its gas fee. In the last one hour from press time, ETH has witnessed a 7% drop with its price tanking all the way to $1830 levels.
This is the first major price crash in ETH in over a week’s time. As per data from Glassnode, the number of Ethereum addresses in profit has reached a 16-month low.
📉 #Ethereum $ETH Number of Addresses in Profit (7d MA) just reached a 16-month low of 47,371,111.726
Previous 16-month low of 47,371,305.179 was observed on 25 May 2022
View metric:https://t.co/9t2b8JZ83s pic.twitter.com/MUcy8TcI9N
— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) May 26, 2022
Ethereum (ETH) has been on a strong correction throughout this year and has tanked nearly 50% year-to-date. With today’s price crash, ETH has touched a new low for the year 2022. If the ETH price breaks under $1800, it has all the possibility to go to $1,500. With the recent price crash, the Glassnode data also shows that the number of ETH addresses in loss has touched a 2-year high.
📈 #Ethereum $ETH Number of Addresses in Loss (7d MA) just reached a 2-year high of 33,808,724.958
View metric:https://t.co/eTr2V1rqmQ pic.twitter.com/hP1dLs6GcD
— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) May 26, 2022
Ethereum Gas Fee Touches Ten-Month Low
On-chain data for Ethereum shows that the gas fee has also dropped to a ten-month low. On-chain data provider Santiment reported:
“Ethereum’s average fees are at an extreme low, costing traders just $2.54 per transaction currently. This is the lowest $ETH cost level since July. Historically (but by no means automatically), $ETH prices rise after average transactions dip below $5.”
The drop in the gas fee means that the network is easing up a bit. Ethereum network has been facing this issue of congestion for a while since it is home to some of the biggest DeFi protocols, NFTs, and much more.
On the other hand, the Ethereum developers’ team is currently working on the much-awaited upgrade The Merge. This upgrade will combine the Ethereum mainnet with the Proof-of-Stake Ethereum Beacon chain and will be a major step towards transitioning towards Ethereum 2.0. As per the latest update, The Merge could happen by August 2022. Speaking at the (virtual) ETH Shanghai Web 3.0 Developer Summit, co-founder Vitalik Buterin said:
“We have been working on switching to proof-of-stake almost since the Ethereum project began. And we’ve been working on proof-of-stake for about sevenyears now, but finally, all of that work is coming together. If everything goes well, then the likely plan is for the The Merge to happen in the summer. I know Justin, a few days ago, suggested that August is a possible date for The Merge to happen. If there are no problems, then The Merge will happen in August”.
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