Transaction Fees

Fees are the purest demand signal a chain has: what users actually pay for block space. Log scale, because fee days range from thousands of dollars to the $70M+ frenzy days of 2017 and 2021.

The two chains tell different stories: Bitcoin fees spike episodically (bull manias, inscription waves) on an otherwise low base; Ethereum's fee floor is structurally higher from DeFi/NFT activity but has fallen an order of magnitude since L2s absorbed volume. Fee droughts historically coincide with bear-market apathy phases.