As the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector is booming at a startling rate, ETH transaction fees are also skyrocketing with the price of moving tokens around on the Ethereum blockchain continuing to balloon.

Data shows that the transaction fees have recently accounted for over half of the block reward. Ethereum average Gas price is at a current level of 207 Gwei. Over the past 24 hours, the largest share of Gas fees was spent on decentralized exchange Uniswap, which accounted for 16.27% of the total, or about 1,847 ETH (nearly $700,000).

Online data also shows a 74.92% increase in transactions on the Ethereum blockchain and a 46.5% rise in the number of active ETH addresses during the last 24 hours.

Apparently, everyone is trading DeFi related tokens like crazy. On August 12, for example, the most talked about new DeFi protocol Yam Finance attracted close to $500 million in locked value in 24 hours after its openup.

The project’s short-term annualized interest rate was said to have peaked at a staggering 20,000% at one point, another example of the DeFi bonanza. The Yam sensation is still on though later a smart-contract bug was discovered, with many joyfully posting that “I’m a Yam farmer today”.

Amid the DeFi frenzy, ETH network miners have been happier of late, raking in almost 5 folds the fees collected by their BTC rivals.

According to Messari data, Ethereum miners have collected a cool $6.8 million in fees in the past 24 hours on a mere $2.5 billion worth of transactions. By contrast, Bitcoin (BTC) fees over the past 24 hours were just $1.4 million on $7.7 billion worth of transactions.

Source: https://messari.io/

BitInfoCharts data shows that median transaction fees were at the level of 1.321 at press time – a second-highest ever after the 2018 peak at 2.25 amid the crypto boom.

Along with the surging Ether price and rising fees, Ethereum hashrate has also risen to 2018 levels, all the fundamentals signal the user activity on the Ethereum blockchain is increasing, and the momentum is supposed to be continuing.