DEFI

Ethereum gas fees remain high, culprit identified! Meme coins turn out to be the main culprit

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Ethereum gas fees remain high, culprit identified! Meme coins turn out to be the main culprit

In recent times, the Gas fees of Ethereum have remained consistently high. According to data from Etherscan, it has been above 50 gwei at all times, with instances even exceeding 100 gwei, resulting in a Gas fee of over $6 for a simple transfer. When using Uniswap V3 for swapping, the fee can go as high as $22. Such high fees have left the crypto community feeling overwhelmed, with even airdrop hunters who frequently interact with various protocols feeling that now is not a good time to operate.

So, why are Gas fees so high now?

Gas Fees Skyrocket! Meme Coins Blamed

Regarding the surge in Gas fees, Twitter influencer foobar initially thought it was another illogical NFT Ponzi scheme being hyped up. However, after examining the data from Ultra Sound Money, it was discovered that people were simply frequently swapping some low-value coins through Uniswap. The recent trend in meme coins within the crypto community is the main driver causing the spike in Gas fees.

In the tweet, foobar pointed out that the four horsemen of the apocalypse brought by this doomsday scenario of overwhelming fees are: PEPE, WOJAK, AIDOGE, and WETH used for trading meme coins.

PEPE and WOJAK are meme characters commonly seen in the Western community. Recently, teams have released tokens bearing these names and have sparked a craze in the community using various memes. For example, PEPE's slogan is "Make Meme Coins Great Again" and "The era of Dogecoin has ended," attempting to build consensus within the community. WOJAK followed the trend set by PEPE, further fueling the current meme frenzy, with no end in sight.

AIDOGE capitalized on the recent AI trend and the increasing attention on the Arbitrum token ARB by airdropping AIDOGE to those who received ARB airdrops. Given that the term DOGE itself carries meme-like qualities, AIDOGE has garnered significant attention within this meme-driven hype.

MEV Bots Engage in Frequent Trading, Single Address Consumes 7% of Ethereum Gas

In addition to highlighting the meme coins being hyped, foobar also discovered a DeFi veteran named jaredfromsubway.eth, who conducted 55,000 transactions within 24 hours, occupying a significant portion of Ethereum's block space, making him the main culprit behind the recent surge in Gas fees on the Ethereum network.

Blockchain researcher sealaunch.xyz pointed out that jaredfromsubway.eth is a MEV bot, with the sheer volume of transactions making it the address consuming the most ETH, burning through 455 ETH in 24 hours and utilizing a staggering 7% of network Gas.

What is MEV? Understand MEV arbitrage by clicking here.

After observing the transactions of jaredfromsubway.eth, this MEV bot continuously engages in arbitrage trading of recent meme coins. For example, in two transactions that occurred in the same block 17079568, jaredfromsubway.eth first exchanged around 26.5 ETH for approximately 2.097 billion PEPE, then swapped the same amount of PEPE back for around 27.4 ETH.

Through frequent trades of this nature, jaredfromsubway.eth gradually accumulates profits. Developer Bobie from 0xScope estimated that after deducting Gas costs, he earned $460,000 in a single day, dubbing him the "sole winner of this meme season."

Furthermore, researcher beetle from The Block created a data panel to compare the Gas consumption of all Ethereum users with that of jaredfromsubway.eth in a visual manner, illustrating how excessive his Gas consumption is.

As for who jaredfromsubway.eth really is, it remains unverified. However, several accounts with the same name have appeared on Twitter, claiming to issue tokens and sell MEV bots. Nevertheless, such accounts are often scams, with numerous past records of related fraud, as seen in articles like: Beware of MEV Scams! MEVbots Trapped Contracts and Stole 1800 ETH in Six Months.