Fees

Contents

Mean Tx Fee per Byte (native units)

Definition

The mean transaction fee per byte of all blocks that interval in native units.

Details

  • 0-fee transactions are included

  • Computed as FeeTotNtv / BlkSizeByte

  • If there were no transactions that interval, this metric isn’t computed

  • For SOL, this metric does not include vote transactions. Includes successful and unsuccessful transactions.

Chart

Asset Specific Details

Any blockchain where users are paying for block space rather than computation.

Examples

During the BTC mining ban in China in 2021, we saw an influx of miners turn off their operations so the block interval time increased significantly due to less hash power on the network. In effect, because less miners were online, we saw a spike in the mean transaction fee per byte since less miners were available to include transactions in the blocks, therefore transactions costs higher before the next difficulty adjustment.

Release History

  • Release Version: NDP-EOD 4.8 (Nov, 2020)

Availability for Assets

Mean Tx Fee

Definition

The mean transaction fee per byte of all blocks that interval in native units.

Details

  • 0-fee transactions are included

  • If there were no transactions that interval, this metric isn’t computed

  • FeeByteMeanNtv is Computed as FeeTotNtv / BlkSizeByte

  • FeeMeanUSD is Computed as FeeMeanNtv * PriceUSD

  • The price used is the daily close price

Asset Specific Details

  • Any blockchain where users are paying for block space rather than computation.

  • For SOL, this metric does not include vote transactions. Includes successful and unsuccessful transactions.

Examples

During the BTC mining ban in China in 2021, we saw an influx of miners turn off their operations so the block interval time increased significantly due to less hash power on the network. In effect, because less miners were online, we saw a spike in the mean transaction fee per byte since less miners were available to include transactions in the blocks, therefore transactions costs higher before the next difficulty adjustment.

Release History

  • Release Version: NDP-EOD 4.8 (Nov, 2020)

Availability for Assets

Median Tx Fee

Definition

The median fee per transaction in native units that interval.

Details

  • 0-fee transactions are included

  • If there were no transactions that interval, this metric isn’t computed

  • If there’s an even number of fees, the median is computed by averaging the middle values of the sorted fees

  • FeeMedUSD is computed as FeeMedNtv * PriceUSD

  • Price used is the daily close price

  • 0-fee transactions are included

Asset Specific Details

  • For SOL, this metric does not include vote transactions. Includes successful and unsuccessful transactions.

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Availability for Assets

Mean Miner Tip

Definition

The average (mean) Miner Tip, a.k.a. priority fee, paid for transactions during a time interval (e.g. 1 day).

The concept of a Miner Tip was introduced as part of EIP-1559 and it represents the portion of the total transaction fees that rewards miners. This serves as an added incentive so that miners prioritize transactions that have opted-in and paid a tip. The other portion is called the Base Fee, and it is burnt (destroyed) after the transaction is included in a block.

Ethereum post-1559 requires users to pay for a Base Fee as a prerequisite to include transactions in a block. The Base Fee can go up or down on the basis of the size (in gas units) of the previous block. In times of congestion, where blocks are sequentially increasing in size, paying a Base Fee does not guarantee that a transaction will be included in a block. In such events, users can optionally pay an additional miner tip to nudge miners to include their transactions in their block.

Details

  • EIP1559 was a highly anticipated proposal that changes how transaction fees are priced in Ethereum, as well as the dynamics of block sizes.

  • The proposal activated on the Ethereum Network in August of 2021 and marks one of the biggest changes in monetary policy in the history of cryptoassets.

  • Instead of the legacy gas price, 1559 splits transaction fees into two distinct fields: a Base Fee and an optional Tip (also known as a Priority Fee).

  • This metric calculates the average Tip in transactions that have occurred in the network over the measuring period (e.g. 1 day).

  • For a thorough review of EIP1559 and the design of its pricing mechanism, please refer to this paper.

Chart

Interpretation

  • Miner tips are optional and showcase demand for block space (i.e. transaction settlement) in the short-term.

  • Changes in average miner tip over time can depict changes in demand for block space. When miner tips have to be used due to Base Fees not being enough, the fee market reverts back to first-price auction (like other Crypto assets).

  • In such scenarios, this metric should see an increase as users bid up fees as they did prior to the activation of EIP1559.

Asset-Specific Details

  • Only available for ETH, this metric was introduced following the EIP-1559 upgrade

Examples

We saw a major drop in gas used in Spring 2022 due to the built in difficulty bomb. In the early days of Ethereum, core developers implemented this difficulty bomb mechanism to hold everyone accountable to the PoS timeline. The idea was that the bomb would go off making mining extremely difficult/unprofitable. So each time the bomb started to go off, less blocks were being found so less gas used. Therefore, less priority fees were needed since network activity was low.

Release History

  • Released in the 5.0 release of NDP (August, 2021)

Availability for Assets

Median Miner Tip

Definition

The median Miner Tip, a.k.a. priority fee, paid for transactions during a time interval (e.g. 1 day), shown in native units (e.g. units of ETH).

The concept of a Miner Tip was introduced as part of EIP-1559 and it represents the portion of the total transaction fees that rewards miners. This serves as an added incentive so that miners prioritize transactions that have opted-in and paid a tip. The other portion is called the Base Fee, and it is burnt (destroyed) after the transaction is included in a block.

Ethereum post-1559 requires users to pay for a Base Fee as a prerequisite to include transactions in a block. The Base Fee can go up or down on the basis of the size (in gas units) of the previous block. In times of congestion, where blocks are sequentially increasing in size, paying a Base Fee does not guarantee that a transaction will be included in a block. In such events, users can optionally pay an additional miner tip to nudge miners to include their transactions in their block.

Details

  • EIP1559 was a highly anticipated proposal that changes how transaction fees are priced in Ethereum, as well as the dynamics of block sizes.

  • The proposal activated on the Ethereum Network in August of 2021 and marks one of the biggest changes in monetary policy in the history of cryptoassets.

  • Instead of the legacy gas price, 1559 splits transaction fees into two distinct fields: a Base Fee and an optional Tip (also known as a Priority Fee).

  • This metric calculates the median Tip in transactions that have occurred in the network over the measuring period (e.g. 1 day).

  • For a thorough review of EIP1559 and the design of its pricing mechanism, please refer to this paper.

Asset-Specific Details

  • Only available for ETH, this metric was introduced following the EIP-1559 upgrade

  • For Solana transactions, priority fees are fees paid on top of the 5000 lamport base fee per signature. This includes both setting a higher price per compute unit and setting a higher total compute budget

Examples

  • We saw a major drop in gas used in Spring 2022 due to the built in difficulty bomb. In the early days of Ethereum, core developers implemented this difficulty bomb mechanism to hold everyone accountable to the PoS timeline. The idea was that the bomb would go off making mining extremely difficult/unprofitable. So each time the bomb started to go off, less blocks were being found so less gas used. Therefore, less priority fees were needed since network activity was low.

Interpretation

  • Miner tips are optional and showcase demand for block space (i.e. transaction settlement) in the short-term.

  • Changes in median miner tip over time can depict changes in demand for block space. When miner tips have to be used due to Base Fees not being enough, the fee market reverts back to first-price auction (like other cryptoassets).

  • In such scenarios, this metric should see an increase as users bid up fees as they did prior to the activation of EIP1559.

Release History

  • Released in the 5.0 release of NDP (August, 2021)

Availability for Assets

Total Miner Tips

Definition

The total value of Miner Tips, a.k.a. priority fees, paid for all transactions during a time interval (e.g. 1 day), shown in native units (e.g. units of ETH).

The concept of a Miner Tip was introduced as part of EIP-1559 and it represents the portion of the total transaction fees that rewards miners. This serves as an added incentive so that miners prioritize transactions that have opted-in and paid a tip. The other portion is called the Base Fee, and it is burnt (destroyed) after the transaction is included in a block.

Ethereum post-1559 requires users to pay for a Base Fee as a prerequisite to include transactions in a block. The Base Fee can go up or down on the basis of the size (in gas units) of the previous block. In times of congestion, where blocks are sequentially increasing in size, paying a Base Fee does not guarantee that a transaction will be included in a block. In such events, users can optionally pay an additional miner tip to nudge miners to include their transactions in their block.

Details

  • EIP1559 was a highly anticipated proposal that changes how transaction fees are priced in Ethereum, as well as the dynamics of block sizes.

  • The proposal activated on the Ethereum Network in August of 2021 and marks one of the biggest changes in monetary policy in the history of cryptoassets.

  • Instead of the legacy gas price, 1559 splits transaction fees into two distinct fields: a Base Fee and an optional Tip (also known as a Priority Fee).

  • This metric calculates the total value paid for Tips in transactions that have occurred in the network over the measuring period (e.g. 1 day).

  • For a thorough review of EIP1559 and the design of its pricing mechanism, please refer to this paper.

Asset Specific Details

  • For Solana transactions, priority fees are fees paid on top of the 5000 lamport base fee per signature. This includes both setting a higher price per compute unit and setting a higher total compute budget

Interpretation

  • Miner tips are optional and showcase demand for block space (i.e. transaction settlement) in the short-term.

  • Changes in total miner tip over time can depict changes in demand for block space. When miner tips have to be used due to Base Fees not being enough, the fee market reverts back to first-price auction (like other cryptoassets).

  • In such scenarios, this metric should see an increase as users bid up fees as they did prior to the activation of EIP1559.

Release History

  • Released in the 5.0 release of NDP (August, 2021)

Availability for Assets

Miner Revenue from Fees (%)

Definition

The percentage of miner revenue derived from fees that interval. This is equal to the fees divided by the miner revenue.

Details

  • Computed as 100 * FeeTotNtv / RevNtv

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Interpretation

For blockchains aiming to retain a limited supply by weaning themselves off an issuance-based validator subsidy, fees are expected to be a critical part of the long-term security model. This metric gives you an indication of how prepared a blockchain is to transition from an issuance-based compensation model for validators to a fee-based model.

Availability for Assets

Total Fees

Definition

The sum of all fees paid to miners, transaction validators, stakers and/or block producers that interval. In certain cryptonetworks, fees might be burned (destroyed), but they are still accounted for in this metric.

Details

  • This metric includes fees that are burned as part of the protocol.

  • For chains that use median time, the day is defined using it, otherwise, it’s defined using the block’s timestamps.

Asset Specific Details

  • For Solana transactions, priority fees are fees paid on top of the 5000 lamport base fee per signature. This includes both setting a higher price per compute unit and setting a higher total compute budget.

  • For Ethereum this fee includes fees for transaction execution as well as blob fees. It is made up of base fees, priority fees and blob fees. Fees paid for the execution of transactions only can be calculated by subtracting total blob fees from total fees.

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Interpretation

Fees in USD terms (see Fees, Transaction, Median, USD; Fees, Transaction, Mean, USD, and Fees, Total, USD) are often biased by volatility in unit price, making it difficult to determine trends in fee pressure. Evaluating fees in native unit terms removes the noise from exchange rate volatility and enables more consistent time series comparisons.

Availability for Assets

Mean Tx Fee per Block Weight (native units)

Definition

The mean transaction fee per weight unit in that interval in native units. Weight is a dimensionless measure of a block’s “size”. It is only applicable for chains that use SegWit (segregated witness).

Details

Asset-Specific Details

  • Only relevant to cryptoassets that have implemented Segregated Witness (SegWit)

Examples

  • During the BTC mining ban in China in 2021, we saw an influx of miners turn off their operations so the block interval time increased significantly due to less hash power on the network. In effect, because less miners were online, we saw a spike in the mean transaction fee per byte since less miners were available to include transactions in the blocks, therefore transactions costs were more competitive.

Release History

  • Release Version: NDP-EOD 4.8 (Nov, 2020)

Interpretation

  • The Segwit upgrade replaced the concept of block size with block weight . While Bitcoins block weight is 4 MB, the mean block time is still slower than other chains such as Litecoin resulting

Availability for Assets

Mean Base Fee (Wei)

Definition

The average (mean) Base Fee paid for transactions during a time interval (e.g. 1 day), shown in the smallest denomination of Ether, Wei units.

The concept of a Base Fee was introduced as part of EIP-1559 and it represents the portion of the total transaction fees that is destroyed and taken out of circulation (i.e. burnt). Ethereum post-1559 requires users to pay for a Base Fee as a prerequisite to include transactions in a block. The Base Fee can go up or down on the basis of the size (in gas units) of the previous block. In times of congestion, where blocks are sequentially increasing in size, paying a Base Fee does not guarantee that a transaction will be included in a block. In such events, users can optionally pay an additional Miner Tip to nudge miners to include their transactions in their block.

Details

  • EIP1559 was a highly anticipated proposal that changes how transaction fees are priced in Ethereum, as well as the dynamics of block sizes.

  • The proposal activated on the Ethereum Network in August of 2021 and marks one of the biggest changes in monetary policy in the history of cryptoassets.

  • Instead of the legacy gas price, 1559 splits transaction fees into two distinct fields: a Base Fee and an optional Tip (also known as a Priority Fee).

  • This metric calculates the average Base Fee in transactions that have occurred in the network over the measuring period (e.g. 1 day).

  • For a thorough review of EIP1559 and the design of its pricing mechanism, please refer to this paper.

Interpretation

  • Base Fees fluctuate on the basis of network utilization. If there is high demand for transaction settlement, Base Fees go up, and as demand fades, Base Fees go down.

  • The pricing of Base Fees is inextricably connected to size of blocks in the blockchain. Upon the the activation fo EIP-1559, the maximum size of blocks in Ethereum (measured in units of gas) was more than doubled to 30M.

  • Although blocks are larger, this pricing mechanism attempts to target an average of 15M gas units per block, and an exponential function is used to increase or decrease Base Fees so that this target is hit.

  • If, for example, the previous block was above 15M units of gas, the base fee is increased. If there are several sequential blocks above the 15M target, Base Fees increase exponentially which disincentivizes users from transacting.

  • Changes in Base Fees over time can depict changes in demand for block space. When miner tips have to be used due to Base Fees not being enough, this is a sign of network congestion.

Release History

  • Released in the 5.0 release of NDP (August, 2021)

Availability for Assets

Block Gas Limit

Definition

The sum gas limit of all blocks that day.

Details

  • Gas is a dimensionless unit measuring the computational cost of operations for ETH-based assets. Each transaction spends gas when being processed.

  • Each block has a limit of how much gas can be expanded when processing its operations. It is the scaling limit for ETH-based assets, just as block size is for BTC-based ones.

Chart

Asset-Specific Details

  • Only relevant for ETH and ETC.

Interpretation

  • Ethereum blocks are mined roughly every 15 seconds. Each Ethereum block has a maximum size, which limits the amount of data that can be included. The current maximum block size is set at about 15M gas per block on April 22 (seen in green on the chart above). Prior to that, the gas limit was 12.5M per block, which set in July 2020. Since the maximum block size is denominated in gas and different transactions have different gas usages based on complexity, there isn’t a consistent maximum number of transactions that can be included in a block. But on average, about 160-200 transactions are included per block.

  • The greater the gas limit, the more space is available per block, which can help push down the average gas price.

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Availability for Assets

Mean Block Gas Limit

Definition

The mean gas limit per block that day.

Details

  • Computed as GasLmtBlk / BlkCnt

  • Gas is a dimensionless unit measuring the computational cost of operations for ETH-based assets. Each transaction spends gas when being processed.

Asset-Specific details

  • Only relevant for ETH and ETC.

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Availability for Assets

Tx Gas Limit

Definition

The sum gas limit of all transactions that day.

Details

  • Gas is a dimensionless unit measuring the computational cost of operations for ETH-based assets. Each transaction uses gas when being processed. As it’s impossible to know how much gas every transaction will use before executing it, each transaction specifies a gas limit it’s willing to use.

Asset-Specific Details

  • Only relevant for ETH and ETC.

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Availability for Assets

Mean Block Gas Limit

Definition

The mean gas limit per block that day.

Details

  • Computed as GasLmtBlk / BlkCnt

  • Gas is a dimensionless unit measuring the computational cost of operations for ETH-based assets. Each transaction spends gas when being processed.

Asset-Specific details

  • Only relevant for ETH and ETC.

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Availability for Assets

Mean Gas Limit per Tx

Definition

The mean gas limit per transaction that day.

Details

  • Computed as GasLmtTx / TxCnt

  • Gas is a dimensionless unit measuring the computational cost of operations for ETH-based assets. Each transaction uses gas when being processed. As it’s impossible to know how much gas every transaction will use before executing it, each transaction specifies a gas limit it’s willing to use.

Asset-Specific Details

  • Only relevant for ETH and ETC.

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Availability for Assets

Tx Gas Used

Definition

The sum gas used (i.e., paid) across all transactions that day.

Details

  • Gas is a dimensionless unit measuring the computational cost of operations for ETH-based assets. Each transaction uses gas when being processed.

Asset-Specific details

  • Only relevant for ETH and ETC.

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Availability for Assets

Mean Gas Used per Tx

Definition

The mean gas used (i.e., paid) per transaction that day.

Details

  • Computed as GasUsedTx / TxCnt

  • Gas is a dimensionless unit measuring the computational cost of operations for ETH-based assets. Each transaction uses gas when being processed.

Asset-Specific Details

  • Only relevant for ETH and ETC.

Release History

  • Released in the 1.0 release of NDP

Availability for Assets

Total blob fees

Definition

Total amount of Fees paid for blob space (available in native units and USD)

Availability for Assets

Mean blob fees

Definition

Mean fees paid per blob, shown (available in native units and USD)

Availability for Assets

Median blob fees

Definition

Median fees paid per blob, shown (available in native units and USD)

Availability for Assets

Mean Fee per blob Byte

Definition

Mean fee paid per byte of used blob space (available in native units and USD)

Availability for Assets

Mean fee per blob carrying transaction

Definition

Mean fee paid in blob fees per blob carrying transaction (available in native units and USD)

Availability for Assets

Total Blob Fees paid by Layer 2s

Definition

The sum of all fees paid by tagged Layer 2 sequencers for blob space, shown in native units and USD.

Details

  • The aggregate L2 metrics (FeeBlobL2TotNtv & FeeBlobL2TotUSD) include all tagged L2 sequencers. This list includes additional L2s that do not have dedicated metrics.

Availability for Assets

Mean Blob Fees paid by Layer 2s

Definition

The sum of all fees paid by tagged Layer 2 sequencers for blob space, shown in native units and USD.

Details

  • The aggregate L2 metrics (FeeBlobL2MeanNtv & FeeBlobL2MeanUSD) include all tagged L2 sequencers. This list includes additional L2s that do not have dedicated metrics.

Availability for Assets

API Endpoints

Exchange Deposits metrics can be accessed using these endpoints:

  • timeseries/asset-metrics

and by passing in the metric ID's Fee* and Gas* in the metrics parameter.

GET undefined/timeseries/asset-metrics

curl --compressed "https://api.coinmetrics.io/v4/timeseries/asset-metrics?metrics=FeeByteMeanNtv&assets=btc&pretty=true&api_key=<your_key>"

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