Ethereum cumulative fees in 2020 eclipsed Bitcoin's for the first time

Cumulative transaction fees paid to Ethereum miners for 2020 are now close to double those of Bitcoin, clocking in at $276 million versus $146 million.

A chart released by Coinmetrics highlights how Ethereum fees went on a steep ascent in the latter part of the year, coinciding quite closely with the release of Compound's token incentive.

Cumulative 2020 fees on Ethereum equalized with Bitcoin's on Aug. 12, continuing a break-neck ascent since.

This marks a distinct change from trends in transaction fees from past years, where Bitcoin generally dominated over any other network by a wide margin.

Cointelegraph previously reported that Ethereum first began posting higher daily fee revenue in June.

As activity increased and the average transaction fee with it, total revenue began skyrocketing.

The culprit is most likely the boom of decentralized finance and yield farming, though stablecoin transfers and some alleged Ponzi schemes also make up a significant portion of block space usage on Ethereum.

It's interesting to note that Ethereum fee revenue briefly exceeded the block rewards for a few particularly high-activity days in the past few months.

Overall, fees have crept up to steadily over more than 10% of total issuance since May - a threshold achieved only a few times in the coin's history.

For Bitcoin, raising transaction fees to cover existing issuance is crucial for its long-term future, since block rewards will eventually expire.