The main altcoins do not reach USD 1,000 in fees per day. Between 8 cryptocurrencies, the peak during the last month was USD 6,000 in one day.
The use of Bitcoin and Ethereum exceeds that of the main altcoins on the market. This is reflected in the value in US dollars of the fees that its users pay every day, compared to other cryptocurrencies. This is a sign that users see greater usefulness in both networks.
Bitcoin users have paid at least USD 700,000 in fees every day to execute their transactions in recent months. The peaks have even reached above USD 2 million, according to data from Coin Metrics.
Ethereum had peaks of up to USD 8,600,000 in fees on August 13th. With that figure, it exceeded the all-time high of USD 6,870,000 that it had recorded the previous day.
Fees on this network have not dropped below USD 1 million per day since July 19th. That same date, there was the lowest value of the fees on Bitcoin for the last 30 days.
The combined total fees between both cryptocurrencies were almost USD 10 million on August 13th. In the last week, that accumulated figure has not dropped from USD 4,000,000 any day.
Among the main altcoins by market capitalization, the total daily fees are well below those that Bitcoin and Ethereum have recorded. None of them even reaches USD 1,000 per day with specific exceptions, according to CoinMetrics.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Have Sustained Dominance
This reality is not new nor is it limited to the last month. Historically, it is possible to see that Bitcoin and Ethereum have sustained broad dominance over time.
The data reflect the willingness of users to pay fees for the use of consolidated platforms to move their funds. This occurs even though the value proposition of some other cryptocurrencies includes cheaper fees.
However, low levels of fees show little use of a cryptocurrency on blockchain-based networks. Since the space in the blocks is sold on these networks, the fact that transactions flow without paying or paying very little is only an indicator of their lack of use.
During the 2017 bullish market, Bitcoin even exceeded USD 20 billion in fees. For the last 3 years, neither BTC nor ETH has had competition in this area.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Have Jointly Moved Over USD 10,000 Million
Those who are against Bitcoin often label the payment of transaction fees as a problem for the cryptocurrency. This issue in the case of Ethereum has also received wide questioning since the proliferation of decentralized finance (DeFi) projects has congested it in recent months.
However, the fee levels on both networks recently show that their users compete to trade on the network. An example of this is the value in US dollars equally transferred on both networks in recent days.
There have been 6 days in which users have moved over USD 10 billion between both cryptocurrencies in the last month, according to data from Coin Metrics. Bitcoin dominates this area, repeatedly exceeding USD 8 billion in one day.
When comparing those values with those of the other cryptocurrencies, the difference is also clear. Except for ADA, none of the altcoins mentioned above exceeded USD 1 billion in one day.
By Alexander Salazar
