More than $ 144 million of ether has been burned since major network upgrades hit Ethereum last week

• Over $ 140 million of ether has been burnt since the Ethereum royalty system overhauled on August 5.
• The EIP-1559 changes got many investors excited and helped push up the price of ether by 17%.
• Yet the asset remains volatile, having lost half of its value between May and June before rebounding.
• Sign up for our daily newsletter, 10 things before the opening bell here.

More than $ 144 million of ether has been burned since an overhaul of the ethereum grid royalty system went into service on August 5.

As of Sunday, more than 45,799 ethers had been burned, according to the Watch the Burn tracking website, at a rate of about 3.15 tokens per minute. The total amount burned was worth more than $ 144 million at a price of $ 3,163 on Sunday.

The Ethereum upgrade, codenamed EIP-1559, went into effect on August 5 and significantly changed how charges work on the network.

It has excited many investors because it has introduced a “fee burn”. Users now pay a base fee to have their transaction processed by miners, instead of the auction system that was previously used.

Miners do not collect the basic charge, otherwise they could artificially congest the network to keep the charges high. To solve this problem, it is burnt instead.

Read more: How to mine ethereum: 25-year-old man who pays $ 42 per month in exchange for half ether per month explains how he does it – and expert breaks down effect of recent blockchain upgrade on minors

The royalty combustion mechanism limits the growth of the amount of ether in circulation. As of Sunday morning US time, 89,543 ethers were emitted while 45,799 were burned, a net reduction of about 34%, according to Watch the Burn.

Investors have responded well to the changes, with the price of ether rising from around $ 2,700 when EIP-1559 went online to over $ 3,160 on Sunday. The excitement over the changes had also helped push the price up ahead of the changes going into effect, contributing to the 65% rise in Aether in the past 30 days.

“A massive Ethereum upgrade should prove very optimistic for the cryptocurrency’s long-term outlook,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at the Oanda trading platform, in a note. “Token manufacturing pace has been reduced, which will help make them a bit rarer.”

However, ether remains an extremely volatile asset with unpredictable future price movement. The token rose to over $ 4,100 before losing more than half of its value at the end of June.

Regulators have repeatedly warned that people who invest in cryptocurrencies take a big risk and should be prepared to lose all of their money.