This first day of the week turned out to be quite volatile.

The price of Ether broke through the $4,000 barrier to hit a new all-time high of $4,200 and then to see a much-needed pullback to $3,760 after a run-up of 110% in less than 20 days.

As of writing, ETH/USD is back around $3,930 and 0.070 against BTC, down from yesterday’s high of 0.074 BTC. BTC -2.73% Bitcoin / USD BTCUSD $ 55,760.42
-$1,522.26 -2.73% Volume 73.04 b Change -$1,522.26 Open $55,760.42 Circulating 18.71 m Market Cap 1.04 t baseUrl = "https://widgets.cryptocompare.com/"; var scripts = document.getElementsByTagName("script"); var embedder = scripts[scripts.length - 1]; var cccTheme = {"Chart": {"fillColor": "rgba(248,155,35,0.2)", "borderColor": "#F89B23"}}; (function () { var appName = encodeURIComponent(window.location.hostname); if (appName == "") { appName = "local"; } var s = document.createElement("script"); s.type = "text/javascript"; s.async = true; var theUrl = baseUrl + 'serve/v1/coin/chart?fsym=BTC&tsym=USD'; s.src = theUrl + (theUrl.indexOf("?") >= 0 ? "&" : "?") + "app=" + appName; embedder.parentNode.appendChild(s); })(); 47 min Ethereum is Literally Unusable; Fees Surge to New ATH as Dogs Take Over the Network 1 h Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg's Cryptic Bitcoin Message Has the Market Excited 2 h Tech Stocks Dragging Bitcoin, Ether, & Crypto's Down, But 'Fundamentals Still Strong'

ETH: Large open interest build up on $5k strike pic.twitter.com/v2bKB5TQdx

— skew (@skewdotcom) May 11, 2021

This volatility has the fees on the network skyrocketing. As we reported, the fees started rising ever since this month started, providing not even two weeks of reprieve from high fees after the Berlin hard fork.

On Tuesday, the average transaction fee hit a new all-time high of almost $60. But this is just the average fee on the Ethereum network; if you have to make use of a DeFi application, then it’s extremely brutal as people are noting that it costs $300-$400 for one swap.

On Monday, more than $5.7 million were paid by Ethereum users in one hour. In the past 24 hours, Ethereum generated almost $90 million in fees compared to just $5.7 million by Bitcoin.

Source: Blockchair

The gas fees have also reached 300 Gwei, but it is average and not taking into account other DeFi protocols or a fast transaction.

Because of this, people are choosing the likes of BSC and Solana. “I quit swapping and farming for the most part on ETH months ago never looked back, feel like I missed nothing. just as good or better returns on farms and tokens on alternative chains, and the fee costs me $1 to maintain them, not $500,” said trader MoonOverlord. BNB 0.67% Binance Coin / USD BNBUSD $ 661.28
$4.43 0.67% Volume 5.69 b Change $4.43 Open $661.28 Circulating 153.43 m Market Cap 101.46 b baseUrl = "https://widgets.cryptocompare.com/"; var scripts = document.getElementsByTagName("script"); var embedder = scripts[scripts.length - 1]; var cccTheme = {"Chart": {"fillColor": "rgba(248,155,35,0.2)", "borderColor": "#F89B23"}}; (function () { var appName = encodeURIComponent(window.location.hostname); if (appName == "") { appName = "local"; } var s = document.createElement("script"); s.type = "text/javascript"; s.async = true; var theUrl = baseUrl + 'serve/v1/coin/chart?fsym=BNB&tsym=USD'; s.src = theUrl + (theUrl.indexOf("?") >= 0 ? "&" : "?") + "app=" + appName; embedder.parentNode.appendChild(s); })(); 47 min Ethereum is Literally Unusable; Fees Surge to New ATH as Dogs Take Over the Network 22 h SHIB Token Is Sending Ethereum Gas Prices Higher 1 d Value DeFi Exploited Yet Again This Week? TVL Collapses by 80% Days After $10M Exploit SOL -6.05% Solana / USD SOLUSD $ 40.90
-$2.47 -6.05% Volume 538.9 m Change -$2.47 Open $40.90 Circulating 272.64 m Market Cap 11.15 b baseUrl = "https://widgets.cryptocompare.com/"; var scripts = document.getElementsByTagName("script"); var embedder = scripts[scripts.length - 1]; var cccTheme = {"Chart": {"fillColor": "rgba(248,155,35,0.2)", "borderColor": "#F89B23"}}; (function () { var appName = encodeURIComponent(window.location.hostname); if (appName == "") { appName = "local"; } var s = document.createElement("script"); s.type = "text/javascript"; s.async = true; var theUrl = baseUrl + 'serve/v1/coin/chart?fsym=SOL&tsym=USD'; s.src = theUrl + (theUrl.indexOf("?") >= 0 ? "&" : "?") + "app=" + appName; embedder.parentNode.appendChild(s); })(); 47 min Ethereum is Literally Unusable; Fees Surge to New ATH as Dogs Take Over the Network 22 h SHIB Token Is Sending Ethereum Gas Prices Higher 3 d Burnt Finance Raises $3M For A Solana-based NFT Marketplace; Famous for Burning Banksy Art Piece

This is why neither of the layer 1 blockchains is in the top 35 fee gainers, as per Crypto Fees.

These high fees on Ethereum come in line with the growing usage as transaction count, and active addresses continue to moon.

While Uniswap, USDT, 1inch Exchange, and USDC remain the biggest gas guzzlers, meme coins are the most traded on the popular DEX Uniswap.

On Monday, canine-themed coins like SHIB, LEASH, AKITA, KISHU, and ELON inspired by Dogecoin have been taking over the internet and Uniswap along with Ethereum. At one point, SHIB-ETH accounted for the highest, over a billion-dollar volume on the platform. Still, it’s the fourth largest traded pair on Uniswap with $125 million in volume.

SHIB was actually listed on Binance this week due to “a large number of users demanding it, to the point where we ran out of ETH deposit addresses,” said CEO Changpeng Zhao. “Never happened before for any other ERC20 coin.”

Muck like cats, Crypto Kitties clogged the Ethereum network in 2017, looks like it’s time for dogs to do the same this bull run.

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