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Points of Focus
- Ether’s entire moving average stack, all 13 signals, turned bullish.
- Network transaction fees fell 87% from April’s peak of $0.715 per transfer.
- The fee drop reflects Fusaka’s capacity gains, not only weaker demand.
Ether (ETH) is trading at $2,483.02, up 1.53% intraday, at the time of writing, testing $2,500 after a session high of $2,490.75.
The advance comes alongside a complete reversal in Ethereum’s moving average (MA) stack and a separate, structural story in Ethereum’s network transaction fees, which have fallen 87% from this year’s peak even as the spot price sits near yearly highs.
Ethereum’s entire MA stack turns bullish
Every MA this coverage tracks now shows an upward signal, 13 in total, a full reversal from six downward signals recorded two sessions ago. The 10-day, 20-day, and 30-day simple and exponential averages, the 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day averages, and the nine-day Hull average all flipped or held bullish, the first time the complete stack has aligned in one direction in this coverage.
The oscillators tell a consistent story. Momentum has climbed to -1.62 from -89.83 four days ago, effectively flat and tagged as an upward signal. Bull Bear Power has crossed into positive territory at 6.08, up from -47.97, the first positive reading in this coverage rather than another instance of the tag-versus-value gap seen previously.
The relative strength index (RSI) sits at 56.90, comfortably above the 50 midline. The moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) level remains the lone holdout on a downward signal, at 50.71, though it has narrowed for two straight sessions rather than widened.
Ethereum network fees have dropped 87% since April’s peak
Ethereum’s average transaction fee has fallen to about $0.095 per transfer today from a 2026 peak of $0.715 on April 21, according to Santiment, even as ETH trades near its highest levels of the year.
💸 Ethereum transaction costs have dropped considerably. Since the year’s peak fees of $0.72 per transfer back on April 21st, $ETH costs just $0.095 per transfer today, even with ETH trading at a higher market value now.
📉 Softer mainnet demand through the bearish summer helped… pic.twitter.com/gaWkEKUN25
— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) September 17, 2026
Santiment attributes the decline to two distinct forces: softer mainnet demand through the bearish summer and genuine network capacity growth from the Fusaka upgrade, including a higher default gas limit and expanded blob throughput via PeerDAS, alongside layer-2 networks absorbing execution that previously competed for mainnet blockspace.
That capacity growth is verifiable independent of Santiment’s description. Fusaka activated on mainnet in December 2025 and targets a 60-million gas limit through Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 7935, roughly a third higher than the network’s prior default, while PeerDAS lets validator nodes verify blob data by sampling small portions rather than downloading entire blobs. This change has let Ethereum raise blob capacity through several parameter-only forks since launch without requiring a full hard fork each time.
The distinction matters for interpreting falling fees. Cheap blockspace from a shrinking, less-used network is a bearish signal; cheap blockspace from the network processing the same or growing activity more efficiently is closer to a fundamental improvement.
Santiment’s post is careful on this point, noting that low fees alone do not prove demand is strengthening, only that a longstanding usage barrier, several dollars per transaction during peak congestion, has been substantially removed at the same time participation shows signs of returning.
What Ether’s price recovery still needs to confirm
A fully bullish MA stack is a meaningfully different signal than the mixed, healing stack seen in recent sessions, but it does not confirm a breakout on its own. A sustained daily close above $2,500 remains the level several readings have pointed to before a run toward $2,748 and eventually $3,000 becomes credible.
The fee data adds a fundamental argument for why that move, if it comes, would rest on firmer ground than price action alone: a network that got structurally cheaper to use. In contrast, price recovery is better positioned to absorb a real increase in activity than one where falling fees only tracked falling usage. Whether Ethereum users actually return in volume, rather than the network merely having room for them to, is the open question the fee chart cannot answer.
That question is worth watching alongside the technical picture, not separately from it. A fully bullish moving average stack reflects price action that has already happened; a sustained pickup in actual transaction counts and fees paid, even from a lower per-transaction base, would be the fundamental confirmation that the price recovery and the capacity story are reinforcing each other rather than running on parallel but unconnected tracks.
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