It is believed that since the launch of PEPE, the Ethereum gas fees increased by 50%.
Ethereum's gas fees have skyrocketed to a 12-month peak due to a surge in demand for a frog-themed meme token called Pepe (PEPE).
Based on the BitDegree Ethereum gas tracker, the median daily gas price, representing transaction costs, reached 87 gwei (a billionth of an Ether (ETH)) earlier this week. This price marks a 50% increase since PEPE's launch on April 18th.
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At one point, on May 1st, the one-minute median gas price even exceeded 150 gwei.
CoinMetrics speculated that the fee surge highlights the intense demand for the Ethereum network, primarily driven by meme-coin traders. In their weekly note to subscribers, CoinMetrics stated:
As BTC births a nascent memecoin scene, the ETH ecosystem continues to crank out multi-million dollar altcoins. ERC-20 heavyweight PEPE ('the most memeable memecoin in existence') soared +300% over the weekend, snagging a near-$600M fully-diluted valuation.
The PEPE craze has reached such heights that Uniswap's PEPE-WETH liquidity pools recently became the most active pool in terms of transaction volume. Scimitar Capital's Alex tweeted data revealing that over 410,000 PEPE transactions on Uniswap have resulted in approximately $10 million worth of gas being burned.
Since its introduction three weeks ago, PEPE has surpassed a market capitalization of $500 million and is approaching a billion. At the time of writing, Pepe (PEPE) retails for $0.00000209, recording a 56.05% increase in the last 24 hours.
It is worth noting that it is not the first time the memecoin craze made Ethereum gas prices skyrocket. At the end of April, the Ethereum gas fee reached almost 81 gwei.
The memecoin frenzy has also impacted smaller coins, with CHAD and 4TOKEN rallying 450% and 250% in a week, respectively, and DINO experiencing a 500% increase over two weeks.
