<p>Thursday's ethereum network congestion – perhaps unsurprisingly – resulted in a significant uptick in the total number of fee payments during a 24-hour period.</p> <p>According to data collected by The Block, roughly $564,000 in ETH was paid by transactors over the course of March 12. A transaction fee is paid in order to give users transaction priority on the network; the higher your fee, the higher its likelihood of being included in the next block.</p> <p>Thursday saw a <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/58538/decentralized-exchange-dydx-imposes-minimum-trade-size-amid-ethereum-transaction-fee-spike">considerable spike</a> in gas fees to well over 100 Gwei from about 12 the previous day, as previously reported. This fee spike coincided with substantial liquidations of ETH amid a wider crypto market decline.</p> <p>March 12 saw the most fees paid in a single day for 2020, and the highest day of its kind since February 2019. </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img class="alignnone wp-image-58716 size-full" src="https://www.tbstat.com/wp/uploads/2020/03/Transaction-Fees.png" alt="" width="2726" height="1252" /></p> <p>The amount of Ethereum transaction fees paid eclipsed the amount paid by bitcoin users, which came in at $298,000. Still, bitcoin fees show a trend of a steady increase in the last few days. </p> <p>Data compiled by The Block shows that the number of liquidations on Compound hit its <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/58541/crypto-market-drop-triggers-liquidations-across-makerdao-compound-lending-protocols">highest level ever yesterday</a>, with the majority of those liquidations in the form of ETH. At the time of data collection, $4.19 million in ETH and roughly $120,000 worth of the USDC stablecoin had been liquidated in that 24-hour period. </p>