Yes, this is just demand for blockspace driving up the price. Some of this demand stems from inscription transactions, in particular BRC20 transactions. The BRC20 activity increased recently again. Other than that, one issue that exacerbates the situation that blockspace production is essentially fixed, so whenever blockspace demand exceeds production, the users that are aiming for prompt confirmation tend to get into bidding wars which can quickly drive up the feerate.

I’ve written a bit more about the general subject on Bitcoin Stack Exchange: Can you explain some of the dynamics that drive the variations in mempool depth?