Ethereum’s network revenue from gas fees totaled US$2.4 billion in the first quarter of 2022, down 44% from US$4.34 billion in Q4 2021, while 87% of the revenue, or around US$2.1 billion worth of ETH tokens, were burned, according to Bankless’ Q1 report of the blockchain.
See related article: Amount of Ether burnt since EIP 1559 reaches 1M ETH
Fast facts
- Ethereum is the most widely used smart contract blockchain in the world and faced gas fee (transaction fee) surges due to the rising popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) in 2021.
- In August, the Ethereum network implemented its EIP-1559 upgrade in the London hard fork, which replaced the previous auction-based transaction fee structure with a base fee, which now gets burnt, or destroyed.
- The network’s average gas fee fell by more than 88% to US$2.98 in Q1 2022 from US$26.89 in Q4 2021.
- Ethereum’s inflation rate, which tracks the change in the token’s supply, eased to 0.51% in the first quarter, from 1.10% in the first quarter of 2021.
- The average daily addresses interacting with Ethereum increased by 4% in the first quarter on year, while the amount of staked Ethereum rose to 10.9 million ETH, a gain of 111% from 5.2 million ETH on year.
- Spot market volumes on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on Ethereum rose to US$3.9 trillion for the quarter, up 667% from US$513.4 billion a year earlier, while perpetuals DEX volumes totaled US$209.1 billion, a jump of 2,704% on year.
- NFT marketplace volume on Ethereum rose to US$116.4 billion during the first quarter, growing over 19,000% from US$606.3 million in the three-month period a year earlier.
See related article: Ethereum reaches 1 million NFT buyers as gas fees sink