Ether Inferno: Ethereum Network Burned Over $2.4 Billion Worth of ETH in 87 Days

87 days ago, the Ethereum network successfully implemented the London hard fork upgrade, and ever since then over 700,000 ether has been burned, or more than $2.4 billion using today’s exchange rates.

702,886 Ethereum Burned Since the London Hard Fork

Data from Dune Analytics indicates that on October 31, 2021, otherwise known as Halloween, 702,886 ethereum (ETH) has been burned. The burning of ethereum started on August 5, 2021, when the Ethereum network successfully implemented the London hard fork upgrade and EIP-1559.

At the time, the London hard fork upgrade included roughly five different changes but the most transformative were EIP-1559 and EIP-3554. While EIP-3554 changed the Ethereum network’s difficulty bomb, EIP-1559 changed Ethereum’s fee rate to a new scheme that makes the crypto asset ether deflationary.

Just recently, Ethereum implemented the Altair upgrade which helps smooth the consensus process from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). After Altair was implemented, ethereum (ETH) tapped an all-time high (ATH) two days ago on October 29, reaching $4,467 per ether.

The 702,886 ethereum (ETH) that has been burned to date is worth roughly $2.476 billion using exchange rates on October 31.

The biggest ETH burner today is the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Opensea which has burned 91,171 ether. This is followed by typical ether transactions that everyday users and organizations send which amounts to 63,441 ether burned. The decentralized exchange (dex) Uniswap V2 has burned 51,217 ether, making it the third-largest burner today.

While tether (USDT) is the fourth-largest burner on the network on Sunday, the stablecoin USDC is the eighth-largest in the pack. Other notable platforms and networks that contribute significantly to the ether burn rate include Metamask, Axie Infinity, and the dex aggregator 1inch.

Meanwhile, statistics from bitinfocharts.com indicate the average transaction fee on the ETH network is 0.012 ether or $51.16. Metrics from l2fees.info are far more modest with Ethereum network fees recorded at $10.21 per transaction. L2fees.info also shows that transferring Ethereum-based tokens can cost $23.26 per transfer and swapping a token via a smart contract can cost $51.05 per transaction.

What do you think about the 700K ether or $2.4 billion worth of ethereum burned since August 5? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.