Yahoo News MyEtherWallet CEO discusses mounting Ethereum gas price
MyEtherWallet CEO Kosala Hemachandra has called for layer 2 solutions to be utilised in combating the recent rise in Ethereum gas prices.
Ethereum gas prices have surged over the past few months as investors flock to newly-formed DeFi projects like Yearn Finance and Uniswap.
The overwhelming demand has caused significant strain on the Ethereum blockchain, with transaction fees reaching as high as $60 at peak times.
The general consensus is that fees and transaction speed will be dealt with during the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 upgrade, although it’s currently unclear when that will take place.
At the time of the launch of UNI from Uniswap, miners' income from commission fees in the #Ethereum network has reached a record of $938,000 per hour.
The gas price has also broken a record today, reaching 700 Gwei. pic.twitter.com/2pK7Lho9CR
— MS TRADE (@mstrade) September 21, 2020
Hemachandra said: “The Ethereum gas price is high due to increased network activity, which means that we have to find avenues to either support this increase in activity, or to reduce it. Both can be done in multiple ways.
“Supporting the increased activity with existing technology can be done via increasing the block gas limit to a safe amount, and also by utilising existing layer 2 solutions. Reducing activity can be done by optimising smart contracts to do multiple actions at the same time, therefore reducing the number of transactions.”
Whether simply raising the block gas limit is enough to relieve the strain remains to be seen, but it’s now clear that something needs to be done before the issues prevent new entrants from buying into the market.
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