Santiment suggests altseason is approaching as Ethereum fees hit a 6-month low.

Gas fees on the Ethereum network have dropped to the lowest level in six months, despite a slight increase in the price of Ether over the weekend. Crypto analytics platform Santiment suggests that this could be an indication of an upcoming altcoin rally. According to Santiment’s April 28 post, the average fee for an Ethereum transaction fell to $1.12 on April 27. Santiment explains that transaction fees tend to peak during market tops and fall to lower levels during market bottoms. Gas fees on Ethereum reached an eight-month high in February due to increased interest in the ERC-404 token standard. The platform believes that the low gas fees could signify a future increase in Ethereum network activity and mark the start of an altcoin rally. CoinGecko data shows that Ether has gained 4.3% in the past week. Moreover, on April 27, the native tokens of Ethereum layer-2 networks Optimism, Arbitrum, and Polygon were among the top five best-performing assets in the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap. They gained 11.7%, 3.5%, and 2.8%, respectively. However, the reduced activity on the network has resulted in a surge in the circulating supply of Ethereum over the past month. In the last 30 days, 74,458 new ETH were issued, while only 57,516 were burned, resulting in a net supply increase of 16,979 new Ether (ETH). This is in contrast to the previous five months, which saw a steady decrease in supply. Despite the recent increase in ETH inflation, more than 437,000 ETH has been burned since the network switched to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism known as the Merge on September 15, 2022.