Ethereum’s supply growth entered a deflationary state on Saturday, a first for the blockchain since The Merge upgrade that shifted the network to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism in September.
See related article: Scalability is Ethereum’s post-Merge focus: Vitalik Buterin
Fast facts
- Ether’s (ETH) burn rate has gone up along with gas fees (transaction fees) since Saturday behind the immense traffic brought on by a new cryptocurrency called XEN Crypto.
- XEN Crypto is an ERC-20, or an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency, which accounted for nearly 30% of the network’s transaction fees over the past day, according to Etherscan data.
- The cryptocurrency was created by ex-Google engineer Jack Levin and launched over the weekend, offering free minting for users willing to pay gas fees.
- Nearly 5,000 ETH in gas fees have been burned, or removed from the network, since Saturday, according to data from the Ethereum supply tracker, ultrasound.money.
See related article: Ethereum liquidity staking protocol Lido links to L2 networks Arbitrum, Optimism