Someone Paid $60K (36 ETH) in Fees to Mint the First NFT on Ethereum After The Merge

The Ethereum network went through its largest upgrade in history, transitioning to a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm.

Immediately after that, users are finding clever ways to commemorate the event and to become part of history.

In this particular case, a user spent a whopping 36 ETH worth about $60K at current rates to mint the very first-ever non-fungible tokens on the PoS-based Ethereum network.
This is what the NFT looks like:

Minted at block height 15537394, the image itself represents a panda face and is called “The Transition.”
There’s a certain irony in the fact that someone paid so much to mint an NFT, but it’s also important to note that the Merge itself doesn’t do much to decrease gas fees on Ethereum’s network.
This is one of the most popular misconceptions about the event.
The Merge has changed the overall consensus algorithm and doesn’t expand the network capacity – this is why it won’t significantly reduce the gas fees.
However, there are multiple scaling solutions that are to be deployed at a later stage to tackle this particular challenge.