Ethereum has seen a 27% surge in value against the US dollar in the last week. Median and average gas prices have risen by more than half a percent, with the average transaction fee going from $2.93 at the start of the year to $5.52.

Ethereum Value Increase Leads to Higher On-Chain Costs

At the time of writing, one ETH is trading at $1.542, after hitting a peak of $1.606 in the same 24-hour period. This has consequently led to an increase in the cost of transferring ether and various ERC20 tokens. Data from Bitinfocharts.com shows that the average ethergas fee was $2.93 on January 1, and is now $5.52.

A similar pattern is evident on Bitinfocharts.com’s midsize ether fee chart. The average cost of sending ETH was $1.06 per transfer on the first day of 2023. On Wednesday, the same chart showed the cost of transferring ether was $1.96. This marks a rise of 84% in median gas prices since January 1.

On Opensea, the cost of transacting was $1.12, but has now shot up to $3.99. Additionally, the cost of trading on decentralized exchanges (DEX) like Uniswap is now $11.28, up from $2.87. The cost of sending ERC20s like USDT and USDC is $3.02, up from $0.84.

Transaction fees on layer two networks have also gone up. Three days ago, Bitcoin.com News reported on the recent surge in Arbitrum and Optimism transactions. On January 15, transfers on the Arbitrum Network cost around $0.101, whereas today the fee is $0.188 per transfer. In the case of