The growing popularity of decentralized finance projects operating on the Ethereum network is causing problems. Some months ago, DeFi users had to cope with slightly longer processing times, now the costs of interacting with Ethereum have skyrocketed.

On the 13th of August, a total of €5.82 million in fees were paid on Ethereum, an all-time high for the five-year-old network. The average transaction cost has grown from $0,32 to $3,35 within a month.

It is reported that some users have even paid up to $100 in fees to interact with a DeFi protocol.

The situation amplifies the importance and urgency of Ethereum 2.0. The network upgrade aimed to improve scalability is expected to launch by the end of 2020. The last test net was launched some days ago. But will this be in time? Even though Ethereum is still by far the most popular platform to build applications on, fierce competition is looming.