Ethereum gas costs rise to record levels in November
02:48, 13 December 2021
Gas fees to execute transactions on the Ethereum network continued their rise in November to reach an average of $48.33, more than 16 times the cost to use bitcoin and way in excess of competitor smart contract blockchains.
Bitcoin fees went below $3 for the third time in six months while fellow smart contract blockchains Cardano and XRP saw average gas fees of just $0.38 and $0.32 respectively, according to research by CryptoCompare.
According to the research firm, the high relative cost to execute transactions on the Ethereum network has long term implications for the blockchain.
High fees pose problem for ETH
“[High gas fees] provide a large obstacle for an increase in adoption of the asset compared to other cryptocurrencies with lower fees,” the firm said in its monthly report.
The rapid rise in the Solana blockchain slowed slightly last month, with what CryptoCompare terms the Total Value Locked (TVL) in its ecosystem growing 15.8% to hit $14.4bn ($12.7bn).
While this still represents an all-time high in TVL for the blockchain this level of expansion is way below the 111% average it posted monthly between July and October.
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Most major coins lost value last month
Solana’s TVL is also still way behind Ethereum’s which grew 8.60% to $178bn in November, despite the high cost of executing transactions on the network.
According to CryptoCompare, ETH was the best performing asset out of the largest cryptocurrencies in November, returning 7.9% throughout the month, followed by solana at 2.8%.
All other major coins fell in November, with BTC, XRP and ADA returning -7.1%, -10.2% and -21.0% respectively.
High crypto volatility
While the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation have seen strong returns so far this year, with all digital coins returning over 95%, this has been accompanied by high levels of realised volatility.
In November SOL saw realised volatility of 105%, while bitcoin’s levels hit 65%. In comparison, the S&P500 and NASDAQ indices experienced realised volatility of 15.6% and 19.4% respectively.
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