Ethereum Gas Fees Are Sky High: Here Are Some Social Media Reactions

Ethereum gas fee is something that all users must pay for performing any function on the Ethereum blockchain. Gas for Ethereum ETH/USD is measured in Gigawei (Gwei) which is equal to 10^9 Wei.

In January 2022, a media reporter took to X and said “Ethereum gas fees are like Uber surge prices. You have to be drunk to not notice how bad they are.”

Instances When Gas Fees Surged/Dropped: There have been multiple instances when Ethereum gas fees have increased or dropped. In October 2023, Ethereum gas fees saw a new low as activity on DeFi, NFT and various Telegram bots witnessed a fall.

Top gas spenders, including Binance and Coinbase, as well as Layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum, Optimism and Base, spent 30% less in mid-October on a week-over-week comparison, Decrypt reported. 

A major drop in Ethereum gas fees occurred after the network was shifted to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, known as Ethereum 2.0. This led to replacing the energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) model and introducing staking. 

Ethereum now reports a significant 99.9% reduction in energy consumption.

In the last week of September, Ethereum gas fees witnessed a 1,900% surge as Binance activated dormant wallets. A Binance-affiliated wallet, known as Binance 14, pushed fees to almost 300 Gwei from 15 with a sudden surge in transactions.

On Dec.1, 2023, transactions connected to a new NFT project known as Buterin Cards accounted for around 13% of the total Ethereum network gas fees within three hours, Crypto News reported. This exceeded the fees from the Uniswap universal router address and Tether’s public address, based on Etherscan data.

Buterin Cards project targeted the release of 2,015 NFTs as a tribute to Ethereum blockchain co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

With the rise in gas fees, users have been attracted to alternative Layer-1 blockchains like BNB Chain, Solana and Cardano as they boast of lower fees and faster transactions.

Social Media Memes On Ethereum Gas Fees Social media users have always been vocal about developments, problems and solutions in the crypto industry. 

An X user, Drew Austin, stated, “I sometimes have no idea why Ethereum has adoption, the gas fees to send a small amount of money to another wallet, or to buy a cheap NFT, is more than the money I am moving, or the cost of the NFT.  It's kind of insane that we're still using this.”

Another X user stated, If anyone here is good with budgeting I could use a hand

Rent- $1900

Groceries- $350

Insurance- $200

Ethereum gas fees- $31000

Gas- $300

Please help my family is dying   

EtherScore, a Web3 reputation system, stated, “The market is green, it's time to improve your on-chain reputation before gas fees become unaffordable”

RezUnique says, “#Crypto is really cool ay. I just paid $27.06 worth of @ethereum gas fees to send $16 worth of #USDT 😂 What happened to gas fees dropping with PoS? @VitalikButerin still running his little scam I see. Death to $ETH.”

Rekt Fencer says it all with a meme picture:

Gas fees on Ethereum in a year: pic.twitter.com/NmSmbLjQNY