Ethereum gas fees spiked to their highest level since 2022 following May’s memecoin comeback championed by the emergence of “Pepe the frog” themed altcoin, PEPE. This trend, however, appears to have slowed down amidst a waning interest in PEPE despite transforming several investors into overnight millionaires.

According to new data by on-chain analytic firm IntoTheBlock, the total Ethereum transaction fees declined by more than 16% this week alone.

Total Ethereum transaction fees dropped by 16.5% this week! May’s meme token mania that fueled the recent fee spike seems to be receding into crypto history. #Ethereum pic.twitter.com/QuKgve8wNM

— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) June 2, 2023

• On zooming out, the transaction fee dropped by 80% over one month from $27.62 on May 5th to $5.50 as of June 4th. The figure is currently hovering near a level last seen during mid-April.
• The latest development comes as a major respite for the blockchain, whose critics have forever deemed the exorbitant gas fee as its “fatal flaw.”
• Apart from mainnet, Ethereum layer 2 scaling solutions were also hit by surging transaction fees during the memecoin renaissance last month.
• Notable spikes were seen particularly on chains built using zero-knowledge proofs such as Polygon zkEVM and zkSync Era. In fact, the cost of a single transaction on these rollups ranged between $2 to $11, temporarily rising as high as $30.
• Pepe’s market cap, on the other hand, witnessed a significant drawdown from $1.15 billion to $450 million over the past month.
• Its price was down by over 60% during the same period despite listing support by prominent crypto exchanges, including Binance.
• Besides Ethereum, the Bitcoin network’s memecoin frenzy led by Ordinals’ inscriptions has also faded considerably in recent weeks. As a result, the transaction fee on the network was back in mid-April level.