The Ethereum network has been facing unprecedented demand in the last few days, so much so that daily gas usage has now hit a new all-time high of over 55 milliom gas units.
According to Etherscan data the usage is now even above what was seen in December 2017, when most cryptocurrencies were at their all-time high before the 2018 bear market. Ether miners recently increased the network’s gas limit per block from 8 million to 9.4 million, and are eyeing 10 million.
Source: Etherscan
Data from EtherGasStation shows that a decentralized game, FairWin, is taking up about one-third of the Ethereum network’s capacity. As it’s a smart contract the transactions it sends, by default, end up consuming more gas than normal peer-to-peer ETH transactions.
Trustnodes reports the game is “ponzi like” and may be gaining traction in Asia, where cultural differences and language barriers have created a separate cryptocurrency scene that uses the same leading cryptocurrency networks.
As the game consumes a significant amount of gas for its smart contract transactions, the total number of transactions on Ethereum hasn’t increased. Demand is still greater than Ethereum can handle, however, as network data shows there are currently over 90,000 pending transactions.
Ether transaction fees remain relatively low below $0.1, partly because the cryptocurrency is currently trading at around $217, according to CryptoCompare data. If the cryptocurrency was trading closer to its all-time highs, transaction fees would be fairly high.
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