The daily median gas price, or transaction cost, hit a 12-month high of 87 gwei early this week. The value has increased more than 50% since the launch of the PEPE token on April 18, according to pseudonymous analyst @hildobby's Ethereum Gas tracker on Dune Analytics. At one point on Monday, the one-minute median gas price surged well past 150 gwei.
The increase represents strong demand for the Ethereum network, mainly from meme-coin traders, according to analytics firm CoinMetrics. "As BTC births a nascent memecoin scene, the ETH ecosystem continues to crank out multi-million dollar altcoins," CoinMetrics said in a weekly note sent to subscribers on Thursday referring to bitcoin and ether by their acronyms."ERC-20 heavyweight PEPE soared +300% over the weekend, snagging a near-$600M fully-diluted valuation.
PEPE surpassed the $500 million mark in market capitalization within three weeks of the launch. Similar frenzied activity has been seen other smaller coins. For instance, CHAD and 4TOKEN have rallied 450% and 250% in one week, while DINO has risen 500% in two weeks.