Validators earned $46 million in the first week of May due to an increase in the staking rewards rate, which is a metric for validators’ annualized yield. According to data, validators earned 24,997 Ether (ETH) in the week, representing a 40% increase over the previous week’s income of $33 million, when 18,339 ETH were distributed as rewards.
The recent trading craze of a new memecoin called Pepe (PEPE) is the reason behind the increased rewards for validators. In the past week, the average fees on the Ethereum network have exceeded 100 gwei, marking the highest level since May 2022. As gas fees increase, end users pay over $30 per swap, resulting in higher fee income for validators from processing transactions and the regular validator rewards.