Through the friend.tech craze, layer-2 solutions have proven effective in reducing gas fees on the Ethereum network

Layer-2 solutions are alleviating the burden on the Ethereum mainnet, as evidenced by stable gas fees despite the recent SocialFi trend sparked by friend.tech.

Amid friend.tech hype, Ethereum gas fees decrease?

In the past, Ethereum gas fees would spike with the introduction of new trends and heightened network activity. However, blockchain resilience has been bolstered by the expansion and development of various layer-2 solutions.

According to L2beat, during the peak of the friend.tech wave, Ethereum gas fees surprisingly dropped to an average of 18 gwei. FalconX Research data indicates that since the launch of the SocialFi project, daily Ethereum gas fees have decreased by 26% compared to the yearly average.

ImageGas fees on Ethereum over the years. Source: FalconX Research

Meanwhile, average Ethereum gas fees during the CryptoKitties trend in 2017 were 900 gwei, Yuga Labs' Otherdeeds in 2022 saw 7,600 gwei, and the recent Pepecoin trend in May 2023 hit 155 gwei.

On the other hand, friend.tech's Base, a layer-2 deployment, recorded a record-high throughput of 15.88 transactions per second (TPS) on August 22, surpassing Ethereum and other layer-2 competitors such as Arbitrum and Optimism. Since its debut earlier this month, friend.tech has rapidly attracted over 100,000 users and generated more than $25 million in fees.

Layer-2 solutions have clearly succeeded in reducing network congestion on Ethereum while providing significantly faster and cheaper transactions.

Another factor potentially impacting Ethereum's activity is the emergence of Bitcoin Ordinals on the Bitcoin network, which may have diverted significant volume away from Ethereum, further alleviating pressure.

The trend of decreasing gas fees correlates with the rate of ETH burnt under Ethereum's EIP-1559 mechanism. ETH burn reached its lowest point of 570 ETH on August 12, 2023.

In conclusion, this trend is viewed positively and is expected to continue, especially with the upcoming proto-danksharding upgrade (EIP-4844) poised to bring substantial improvements to gas fees across layer-2 platforms.