Gas fees so high that trades make little sense?

Newbie here. I am using Coinbase and noticed the fees associated with making a trade are so expensive. To me, especially with the crazy volatile alt coins, short term trades make the most sense to make a profit. It looks like those gains are often if not always wiped out by the “gas fees” associated with purchasing the coin. For instance, today some alt coin had a very short term 50% spike and so I tried to get in on it, and invested about $120 USD that was being held in Ethereum. It cost me about $20 USD to convert the Ethereum into that alt coin. And then when the spike was over and it was time to get out, it cost me another $20 to get my money out of the alt coin and back into Ethereum. It is AWFUL, and quickly burns all my money. I have a brokerage account for stocks and ETF’s and all my trades are free, so this is just shocking and overwhelming to me.

Is it that Ethereum has extra high transaction fees? Are there baseline coins that don’t have crazy high costs to transact with? Is it the fault of the alt coin? I am just a bit lost and would appreciate some insight on how to maximize trades while minimizing transaction fees. I’m ok with a few dollars a trade, but $17-25 in gas fees is just ridiculous.