Ethereum's gas fees have plunged to record lows, falling below 1 gWei for days. This tendency, unusual even in bear markets, shows a dramatic shift in the network's dynamics.
Activity on Ethereum has plummeted dramatically. Fees for slow transactions have dropped as low as 0.57 gWei. This anomaly reflects recent scaling efforts and traffic shifts to Layer 2 solutions such as Arbitrum and Optimism.
Ethereum's low fees make it more accessible for DEX swaps and NFT trading. However, they have halted the burning of ETH, bringing inflation to 0.74%. At this rate, about 1M ETH may be minted per year. The idea to raise blob fees attempts to improve burning rates. This might improve L2 block space use while maintaining ETH's deflationary thesis.
Ethereum has seen massive value outflows. L2s have received $1.4B in the last three months. The network currently has $45B in locked value, down from a record of $65B in May. ETH's price has fallen to the $2.5K level. With a muted mood, a deeper fall might be on the way.
