• Kevin O’Leary exaggerated Ethereum’s congestion and fees.
• Actual ETH gas fees remain far lower than claimed.
• Ethereum’s layer-1 network is built for security, not retail traffic.

Another recent sensational guest in the crypto-verse is Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary. And he cautioned that Ethereum, the world’s second-most valuable blockchain network with a total market value of nearly half a trillion dollars, has been known to “crack” under pressure. He said,

“We’ve been talking about going on-chain for over a decade now, and with adoption really starting to happen in the real world, the cracks start to appear.”

O’Leary was claiming that Ethereum had become congested, resulting in fees topping $1,000. “That’s like paying a thousand-dollar toll to drive on a one-lane highway,” he joked. Noesis’ comments quickly circulated on social media, eliciting reactions from investors and members of the crypto community.

But many in the Ethereum community fought back. Actual gas costs were much lower — about $22 for a basic swap over the course of roughly an hour, they said. Of course, the fees remain high relative to conventional payment mechanisms, but they’re nothing close to O’Leary’s overblown number.

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Ethereum: Built for Layer-1 Security, Not Retail Traffic

Some analysts pointed to a common misunderstanding about Ethereum’s layer-1 network. It is actually not intended to handle retail-level capacity continuously. It focuses instead on security, neutrality, and the end of claims.

“O’Leary’s response is equivalent to saying airplane wheels are too small. True, but it entirely misses the point,” responded influential Ethereum community member Adriano Feria. He also called out that Ethereum’s job is not to be a fast, cheap replacement for centralized payment networks, but rather to provide a secure and audit-able base layer for the on-chain economy.

Regardless of the controversy, O’Leary has not changed his stance on cryptos. He recently said he’s going to focus only on Bitcoin and Ethereum and disregard all of the other altcoins. Between the two, he said it captures around 90% of overall crypto exposure.

Ethereum Layer-2 to Reduce Congestion

The occurrence emphasizes an underlying disagreement in the cryptocurrency industry. Well-known personalities frequently blow up the issues just to make it more interesting. Nevertheless, the technical team and the users of the ecosystem are trying to help the public recognize the real strengths of the network. As one of the most widely used distributed ledgers, ETH is always changing, its innovations on scalability and the development of layer-2 solutions cumulatively making the network less congested and fees lower.

Although O’Leary’s statements might have caused some uproar, they also functioned as an alert. ETH is a powerful, safe, and advancing platform. Erroneous beliefs can be disseminated fast, but the truths regarding transaction costs, capacity, and network purpose are already more widely accepted. It is still important for investors and users to know the network’s role.

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