The daily network fees on the Ethereum network have reached almost $500,000 on Jun. 7 for the fourth time in the network’s history. The huge uptick in-network fees now mean that Ethereum has surpassed Bitcoin, whose network fees on the same date reached only $308,000.
Ethereum Miners Earned $200,000 More Than Bitcoin Miners
The Ethereum network had a pretty good day yesterday, both in terms of network activity and network fees.
According to the latest data from cryptocurrency analytics company Glassnode, the daily network fees on Ethereum surpassed those on Bitcoin by almost $200,000. The uptick in network activity on Ethereum pushed the total amount of fees recorded on Jun. 8 to reach almost $500,000. Yesterday was the fourth time this year that Ethereum miners earned that much money.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, had a rather disappointing performance yesterday, as it recorded only $308,000 in daily network fees.
Graph comparing the daily network fees on Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2020. (Source: Glassnode)
Analyzing Changes in Network Fees
Data from Glassnode has shown that the network fees on Ethereum have rarely outperformed the network fees on Bitcoin. Despite the abundance of DeFi projects and various dApps, this has only happened on 141 days so far, meaning that during the existence of both networks, miners on Ethereum earned more only 8% of the time.
The last time this year Ethereum miners saw much higher profits than Bitcoin miners was in mid-March, right around the time when the crypto market took a heavy hit caused by the coronavirus pandemic and stock market crash. The massive sell-off of various altcoins could have resulted in a congested network, with traders racing to pay the biggest transaction fees in order to liquidate their holdings faster.
On the other hand, the transaction fees on Bitcoin skyrocketed in the first half of May, with the biggest spike in network fees coinciding with the Bitcoin halving. With the block mining reward reduced from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC, transaction fees skyrocketed in order to keep miners profitable. However, as the network recovered from the immediate impact of the halving, the transaction fees reduced, which explains the sharp drop in fees the Bitcoin network has seen since May 18.
Ethereum fees majorly were primarily contributed by Tether with the last 30 USD value at $2.3 million, followed by MMM which is a scam project at $782k according to Eth Gas Station.