Ethereum’s strong ‘lead’ on the fees front – Here’s the why and how of it all!

• Ethereum garnered the top spot as the highest earning blockchain
• There remains a close relationship between fees and transactions

The latest stats on blockchain revenue are out and the Ethereum network has emerged on top, despite growing competition. Not only that, but a clear lead confirmed that it is still the most dominant blockchain there is right now.

According to the report, Ethereum collected an impressive $2.7 billion in fee revenue over the last 12 months. The network was ahead of the Bitcoin network, the runner-up with a figure of $1.43 billion. This pointed to an impressive lead, one which highlighted just how far ahead it is against the competition.

Ethereum’s dominant position in terms of fees is a sign that it remains the most preferred smart contract network in 2024. Its first mover advantage on that front has allowed it to remain the network of choice for most dapps and users.

It may also signal that layer 2 networks have been doing a good job of solving Ethereum mainnet’s shortcomings.

What’s driving up Ethereum fees?

After exploring the Ethereum daily fees chart over a period of 12 months, it is clear that Ethereum fees are directly correlated with the price of ETH.

For example, the highest amount of fees that the network earned on a single day in the last 12 months was $38.42 million on 5 March.

Source: CryptoQuant

Ethereum was on a strong bullish trend in the weeks prior, and this spike occurred near ETH’s current 2024 top. This aligns with observations that demand for ETH within its ecosystem tends to go up during a bull market, indicating robust utility. It also occurred on one of the most volatile days in the market.

Similarly, we also observed the second highest Ethereum fees spike recently at the height of the latest market crash. Fees on 5 August peaked at $15.97 million. This was the same day that the market was characterized by heavy volatility, with the bulls coming out to cancel the bearish trend.

The lowest amount of network fees recorded on a single day was on 7 July at $1.19 million.

Fees go hand in hand with transactions and here’s how the Ethereum network transactions faired – The highest daily number of transactions observed in the last 12 months peaked at 1.96 million transactions on 14 June. Meanwhile, the lowest figure for the same period was a tad over 863,000 transactions on 23 September.

Source: CryptoQuant

Unlike the correlation with its price, the transactions did not demonstrate much of a correlation with fees. That was largely because the highest fees were observed on days when ETH prices were high.