Is Ethereum ‘cooling off’? Transaction fees plummet to pre-2020 levels, burning mechanism fails, and the foundation surprisingly relies on selling coins to survive!

On the Ethereum side, on-chain data reveals a concerning situation. Its transaction fees have dropped to extremely low levels, even lower than in 2020, reflecting a significant reduction in network usage. The community has reacted strongly, and developers are questioning the effectiveness of Eth2. Looking back at 2022, Ethereum's on-chain trading was active, with high transaction fees, and the launch of Eth2 had brought costs down to $0.1 - $0.2, which greatly pleased founder Vitalik Buterin. However, today the main chain's activity has sharply declined, with the transaction fee for basic DEX trading dropping to about $0.19, while coin prices remain sluggish, sparking widespread concern among the community and experts. Industry veterans point out three major changes in Ethereum's market structure: the demand for smart contract platforms has not been effectively met by Ethereum, leading to an outflow of innovation; the marginal cost of issuing ETH is approaching zero; although the ecosystem is bound with a significant amount of value, it is primarily focused on monetization in the short to medium term, lacking positive development momentum. Currently, the main on-chain activity is low-frequency custody needs, and the burning mechanism fails to achieve deflationary goals. The Ethereum foundation has heavily invested in high-performance infrastructure construction during the POS phase, but due to a lack of user demand, it has gone unnoticed, relying solely on selling ETH to maintain operations. This behavior further undermines ecosystem value and has sparked dissatisfaction in the community.