Ethereum miners, now referred to as validators after the Ethereum blockchain “Merge” in September, are benefiting from the intense competition between non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces Blur and OpenSea that has driven up transaction, or gas, fees on the network.
Ethereum gas fees, which typically rise when there is greater demand for network blockspace, have been climbing from the beginning of the year, with recent spikes mainly driven by the NFT market, according to data from on-chain data firm Glassnode.
Ethereum validators earn rewards via gas fees by staking their own Ether to help secure the network. Median transaction gas prices came in at 35 Gwei (a denomination of ETH) on Monday, and exceeded 38 Gwei on Feb. 16, the highest since June 2022, Glassnode data showed.
“Miners are the clear winners right now, as they’re processing this massive increase in transactions on Ethereum,” said Yehudah Petscher, NFT relations strategist of Forkast Labs’ Cryptoslam.
“You’re reminded of that each time you go to transact, whether sending some ETH between wallets or buying…
