PEPE Meme Coin Hysteria Pushes Ethereum Gas Fees to 1-Year High
Ethereums gas fees have surged above a one-year high as the demand for trading the PEPE meme coin continues to soar. The average cost of a single transaction on Ethereum jumped above $15.82 on May 4. While Ethereums mean transaction fees have reached much higher levels of between $50 to $70 in 2021, things have been quiet since the market crashed in May 2022. Its likely that excitement around meme coins, specifically the newly-launched PEPE, is responsible for the revival in gas fees. In the last 24 hours, the trading volume for PEPE surpassed $150 million on , higher than Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and USDT stablecoin volumes. The PEPE token also entered the top 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization on May 1, obtaining a valuation of over $500 million. The token has continued to surge since then, last trading at a market value of $879 million. Following the success of PEPE coin, numerous copycats have also emerged representing different internet memes. Data from crypto analytics firm Nansen shows that the most active smart contracts on Ethereum are currently Uniswap trading pools for meme coins such as SPONGE, TURBO, BOB, and TRBNR. The increased gas fees witnessed 9,392 in ETH burned over the last 24 hours, at par