Aliens TLDR

The previous year was undoubtedly one of major breakthroughs for the Ethereum network.

Similarly, the total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum smart contracts has also jumped from $27 billion to over $144 billion in the previous year, according to DeFiLlama.

Notably, the Ethereum community has tried to bypass these issues by using Layer 2 protocols such as Polygon , which gives the network scaling capabilities required to host the increasing traffic.

Bankless noted that as much as 87% of the total $4.34 billion collected in gas fees in Q4 2021 was burned through EIP-1559.

‘The Merge’ is set to take place this year, where Ethereum’s Beacon chain, which already has staking capabilities, will merge with the current chain to turn the network fully Proof-of-Stake.

The Ethereum merge will take place some time around June '22, but it won't have an impact on the transaction fees you're paying.

— superphiz.eth 🦇🔊🐼 (@superphiz) January 10, 2022 Ethereum developer Anthony Sassano argued the same in a blog post earlier, noting that apart from a minute correction in block time, any noticeable change in the Layer 1 gas fee should not be expected.