With just over two weeks until The Merge, Ethereum network fees have reduced significantly as the average ethereum transfer fee has dropped to 0.00092 ether or $1.37 per transaction on August 28. Median-sized fees have slid to 0.00036 ether or $0.544 per transfer, and etherscan.io’s gas tracking tool notes a priority fee will cost 11 gwei or $0.34 to get a transaction confirmed in roughly 30 seconds.
Ethereum’s OnChain Transfer Costs Remain Low, L2 Transfer and Swap Fees Still Affordable
On August 16, the Ethereum Foundation updated a previously published blog post to clarify that the merge would not reduce gas fees and would not improve throughput. While the merge is a little over two weeks away, Ethereum gas fees are much less expensive than they were before mid-June.
At that time, in the middle of June, Ethereum’s average gas fees started to drop lower from $3.86 per transaction to 0.00086 ether or $1.46 per transfer during the first week of August. Gas fees are even lower today, as the average fee is currently 0.00092 ether or $1.37 per transaction, according to bitinfocharts.com data.
Bitinfocharts.com metrics further show that the average size Ethereum fee on Sunday is 0.00036 Ether, or $0.544 per transaction. According to the website’s dedicated gas tracking tool, Etherscan.io data shows gas prices are low.
Presently, at 4:30 p.m. (EST) on August 28, 2022, the highest “priority” gas fee according to etherscan.io is 11 gwei or $0.34 per transfer. An Opensea settlement will cost $1.17 per transaction, a Uniswap trade will cost a user $3.03 using the priority transfer setting, and to send an ERC20 token like tether (USDT), etherscan.io estimates the cost is around $0.89 per transaction.
While ETH fees are low, they are twice the size of the average transfer fee for bitcoin (BTC), which on Sunday stood at 0.000039 BTC or $0.785 per transaction. The average size fee on the bitcoin blockchain is 0.0000013 BTC or $0.258 per transaction, which is less than the average size transfer fee of ETH.
In terms of 24-hour rewards, ETH miners obtained $41,107,170 in block rewards, while BTC miners acquired $35,976,600 in block rewards plus transaction fees. As onchain Ethereum data fees have dropped a great deal, it is still much cheaper to transact via Ethereum-compatible layer two (L2) payment rails.
The Metis network is the cheapest transfer fee today as l2fees.info indicates that the estimated cost of transferring Ether through Metis is $0.01 per transfer, and it is approximately $0.06 per transaction to swap coins through Metis. Looping Ether transactions will cost an estimated $0.03 per transfer; The L2 estimated cost to trade via Looping is $0.37 per transaction.
L2 fees via Zksync, Arbitrum, Boba Network, Optimism, Aztec Network, and Polygon Hermez are all lower than onchain transfer fees. Swap fees via these networks are also less expensive than onchain swap fees via a traditional trade on a decentralized exchange (dex) like Uniswap.
