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Adoption rate is a significant factor, IMHO. More important, though, when you pair the existing adoption rate with the smart contract engine AND the already existing apps deployed on this engine (of which DeFi is probably the most important now) you get the see the ripples of this movement.

So is gas a thing if the past as of the 1st too?

I don't think so. Gas is an intrinsic component of the network and it is used to reward miners / stakers / smart contracts. So from the 1st it will go to stakers instead of miners. But I might be wrong on that.