Fees

Ethereum Has Burned More Than a Million ETH Over the Last 3 Months

24/11/2021 by Idelto Editor

111 days ago, the Ethereum network implemented the London hard fork upgrade which added a mechanism (EIP-1559) that changed Ethereum’s fee rate to a new scheme that makes the crypto asset ether deflationary. Since then 1 million ether has been burned or the equivalent of around $3.8 billion worth of ethereum using today’s exchange rates.

Over a Million Ether or $3.8 Billion Burned to Date

The second-largest crypto asset in terms of market capitalization, ethereum (ETH) has an overall valuation today just above $500 billion. Ethereum’s market capitalization represents 18.8% of the $2.7 trillion crypto economy. Three months ago, on August 5, 2021, the Ethereum blockchain upgraded and added various features to the consensus rules. The most transformative included EIP-1559 and EIP-3554, and EIP-1559 in particular created a new fee rate scheme that allows the network to burn a portion of ether.

EIP-1559’s summary hosted on Github states:

There is a base fee per gas in protocol, which can move up or down each block according to a formula which is a function of gas used in parent block and gas target (block gas limit divided by elasticity multiplier) of parent block. The algorithm results in the base fee per gas increasing when blocks are above the gas target, and decreasing when blocks are below the gas target. The base fee per gas is burned.

Since the new feature was introduced, metrics from Dune Analytics indicate 1,001,212 ether or $3.8 billion worth of ethereum using today’s exchange rates has been burned.

At the time of writing, etherscan.io’s API which shows the circulating ETH supply indicates that there’s 118,472,428 ether in existence today. The biggest ethereum burner today is still the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Opensea with 110,081 ether or $398 million burned to date.

The burning stemming from Opensea usage took place across 7,941,975 ethereum transfers. Regular ethereum transfers are tethered to 94,800 ETH burned since the upgrade in August. The decentralized exchange (dex) platform Uniswap V2 (version 2) is the third-largest ethereum burner since the upgrade. 92,239 ether or $373 million worth of ethereum using today’s exchange rates has been burned stemming from Uniswap V2 usage.

The stablecoins tether (USDT) and usd coin (USDC) also contribute to a lot of ethereum burning. While tether (USDT) is the fourth largest burner behind Uniswap V2, USDC is the seventh-largest ethereum burner today. Tether across 11,499,787 transfers has attributed to 53,988 ether burned or $210 million. USDC has contributed to the burning of 20,042 ether today or $77 million. Other applications like Metamask, 1inch, Sushiswap, and Axie Infinity also contribute to a lot of ether burning.

What do you think about the 1 million ether burned since August 5? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Russians to Pay Fees on Digital Ruble Transactions, Central Bank Says

21/11/2021 by Idelto Editor

Users of Russia’s central bank digital currency are going to pay a fee for each transaction, a high-ranking representative of Bank of Russia has recently announced. The digital ruble charge, however, is not going to exceed those currently applied to fast payments in the country.

Bank of Russia to Charge for Digital Ruble Transfers

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) is planning to impose fees on transactions with the digital ruble, revealed Kirill Pronin, director of the regulator’s Financial Technologies Department. The official emphasized that these commissions will be lower than current charges for transfers in the banking sector.

Speaking at a forum under the banner “Banking System of Russia: Ensuring Availability of Services and Resources in the Face of Increasing Risks,” Pronin further noted that the fees will certainly not exceed the costs of transfers with Russia’s Faster Payments System (FPS). Quoted by the business news agency Prime, he stated:

We assume fees on transactions with the digital ruble will be lower than existing fees on wire transfers for market participants and definitely not higher than commissions within the FPS framework.

Russia launched its Faster Payment System in January 2019. It allows Russian residents to send money using only a phone number and pay for goods and services with a QR code. Transfers of up to 100,000 rubles per month (approx. $1,350) are free of charge. A fee of 0.5%, but not more than 1,500 rubles (around $20), is applied to transfers exceeding this amount.

The Russian Federation’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) is still under development with experts working on its precise format. The digital ruble is expected to be implemented as a unique code, stored in a special electronic wallet, and become a full-fledged payment instrument alongside the regular ruble in its other two incarnations – cash and bank money.

Bank of Russia started contemplating a digital ruble back in 2018 and decided to explore the possibility of issuing the CBDC last year. A consultation paper was published in October 2020 to gather feedback from financial sector players and other stakeholders. In April 2021, the authority released a digital ruble concept outlining its principle architecture.

In June, the monetary authority formed a pilot group joined by over a dozen banks. CBR plans to complete the platform’s prototype in December 2021 and commence trials in January 2022. Elvira Nabiullina, the bank’s chair, recently stated that the digital ruble will provide Russian citizens with an alternative to cryptocurrencies and fiat-backed stablecoins while enabling cheap and reliable payments.

Do you think Russians will prefer to use the digital ruble platform over existing methods of money transfer? Tell us in the comments section below.

Ether Inferno: Ethereum Network Burned Over $2.4 Billion Worth of ETH in 87 Days

31/10/2021 by Idelto Editor

87 days ago, the Ethereum network successfully implemented the London hard fork upgrade, and ever since then over 700,000 ether has been burned, or more than $2.4 billion using today’s exchange rates.

702,886 Ethereum Burned Since the London Hard Fork

Data from Dune Analytics indicates that on October 31, 2021, otherwise known as Halloween, 702,886 ethereum (ETH) has been burned. The burning of ethereum started on August 5, 2021, when the Ethereum network successfully implemented the London hard fork upgrade and EIP-1559.

At the time, the London hard fork upgrade included roughly five different changes but the most transformative were EIP-1559 and EIP-3554. While EIP-3554 changed the Ethereum network’s difficulty bomb, EIP-1559 changed Ethereum’s fee rate to a new scheme that makes the crypto asset ether deflationary.

Just recently, Ethereum implemented the Altair upgrade which helps smooth the consensus process from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). After Altair was implemented, ethereum (ETH) tapped an all-time high (ATH) two days ago on October 29, reaching $4,467 per ether.

The 702,886 ethereum (ETH) that has been burned to date is worth roughly $2.476 billion using exchange rates on October 31.

The biggest ETH burner today is the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Opensea which has burned 91,171 ether. This is followed by typical ether transactions that everyday users and organizations send which amounts to 63,441 ether burned. The decentralized exchange (dex) Uniswap V2 has burned 51,217 ether, making it the third-largest burner today.

While tether (USDT) is the fourth-largest burner on the network on Sunday, the stablecoin USDC is the eighth-largest in the pack. Other notable platforms and networks that contribute significantly to the ether burn rate include Metamask, Axie Infinity, and the dex aggregator 1inch.

Meanwhile, statistics from bitinfocharts.com indicate the average transaction fee on the ETH network is 0.012 ether or $51.16. Metrics from l2fees.info are far more modest with Ethereum network fees recorded at $10.21 per transaction. L2fees.info also shows that transferring Ethereum-based tokens can cost $23.26 per transfer and swapping a token via a smart contract can cost $51.05 per transaction.

What do you think about the 700K ether or $2.4 billion worth of ethereum burned since August 5? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

While Ethereum Prices Skyrocket, Ether Gas Fees Surge Fueling Costly Transfers

30/10/2021 by Idelto Editor

On October 29, 2021, the second-largest crypto asset in terms of market valuation, ethereum, reached an all-time price high at $4,467 per unit. Meanwhile, after the Ethereum network’s Altair upgrade went live, ether gas fees have skyrocketed significantly.

As Ethereum Tests New Price Highs, the Average Ether Transfer Fees Onchain Skyrocket

The two leading crypto assets by market valuation have had issues with high transfer fees for many years now but this month, Ethereum’s network fees are significantly higher than bitcoin’s. On Saturday, October 30, bitcoin’s (BTC) average network fee according to bitinfocharts.com data shows BTC fees are around 0.00000015 BTC per byte or $3.15 per transaction.

The same web portal tracking ethereum (ETH) gas fees notes that to move some ether, it’ll cost around 0.012 ETH or $50.53 per transaction. The data shows that on Saturday morning, ETH fees are 1,504% higher than BTC network fees. Data stemming from the website l2fees.info are a bit more modest in comparison to bitinfocharts.com’s metrics. At the time of writing, to move ethereum it’ll cost $18.45 per transaction.

The cost to transfer Ethereum-based tokens and swap tokens via a smart contract is much higher. The transfer of token fee according to l2fees.info on Saturday is $43.13 per transaction and over $94 to swap tokens by interacting with a smart contract. The lowest ether transaction fee of $18.45 is still 485% higher than the average BTC transfer today.

Second-Layer Ether Transaction Costs and Swap Token Fee Estimates

Moving ethereum with a second-layer mechanism like Arbitrum or Polygon Hermez is much cheaper to use than onchain ETH transfers on the main network. At press time, Polygon Hermez-based ether transactions cost around $0.25 per transfer, while Loopring’s Zkrollup L2 solution is $0.74. Zksync will cost a user $1.03 per send and leveraging Arbitrum One is around $4.21. The EVM-compatible Optimistic Rollup chain Optimism’s fees today are $4.31 per transaction.

Using Loopring to swap tokens on Saturday is also cheaper than the $94 average cost using Ethereum’s mainnet. Loopring’s swap tokens cost is $1.07, Optimism’s fee to swap tokens is $5.54, and Arbitrum fees to swap tokens can cost $7.29 according to today’s metrics hosted on l2fees.info. As ETH has reached an all-time high, onchain fees are higher than usual following the Altair upgrade, which preps Ethereum for the next proof-of-stake (PoS) transition.

What do you think about Ethereum network fees rising in recent times? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

While Musk Mentions Doge Improvements, Dogecoin Developers Continue to Address Scaling Concerns

25/10/2021 by Idelto Editor

On Sunday, Elon Musk discussed his relationship with the Dogecoin Foundation and he mentioned a few improvements he’d like to see implemented via Dogecoin Core’s codebase. Meanwhile, Github metrics show developers have been working on Dogecoin Core during the last few months and it seems Dogecoin software engineers are prepping the network to address fees, transaction time, and mining.

Dogecoin Proponents Including Elon Musk Patiently Wait for a fee Change Fix, Dogecoin Core Repo Has Been Active

At the end of June, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk tweeted about the fee change proposal added to the Dogecoin Core Github repository. At the time, Musk said it was “important to support” it. The following week, people noticed that Dogecoin software developers Ross Nicoll and Patrick Lodder were maintaining the project and looking to add Musk’s suggestions. Lodder’s Dogecoin Core fee change proposal explained that the fix would be “gradually deployed to the network over multiple software releases.”

Ever since then, there’s been a lot more action happening in the Dogecoin Core Github repo. 1000x.group metrics from the “Number of Developers Working on Specific Crypto Projects” tracker show that between August 2017 to January 2021, Dogecoin network development was a ghost town. In February 2021, 16 software engineers were working on the project, in May there were three developers. 1000x.group statistics show that 12 software developers contributed to Dogecoin Core in August.

Last Dogecoin Release ‘Part of a Two-Stage Update to Lower the Fee Recommendation’

Looking at Dogecoin Core’s Github repo indicates that Ross Nicoll and Patrick Lodder are still very active. Lodder dropped the release Dogecoin Core 1.14.4 on August 20, 2021.

Lodder’s description of the 1.14.4 software notes that the release prepares the network for a reduction of the recommended fees. The action would reduce the “default fee requirement 1000x for transaction relay and 100x for mining.”

“At the same time, it increases freedom for miner, wallet, and node operators to agree on fees regardless of defaults coded into the Dogecoin Core software by solidifying fine-grained controls for operators to deviate from built-in defaults,” the Dogecoin Core 1.14.4 release notes written by Lodder explain. “This realizes the first part of a two-stage update to lower the fee recommendation – a follow-up release will implement the lower fee recommendation, once the network has adapted to the relay defaults introduced with this version of Dogecoin Core.”

In the Twitter thread with the Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the individual mentioned “NFT integrations” that looked “promising.” But many others agreed with Musk who was more interested in “lowering fees, decreasing block time & increasing block size.” Dogecoin’s co-creator Billy Markus agreed with Musk as well. “Yeah… IMO dogecoin being fast, scalable, and inexpensive to send around is all it needs to be, it doesn’t need to be yet another blockchain that hosts NFTs or other tokens or whatever,” Markus said. Tesla’s CEO agreed with the Dogecoin co-founder and replied with a 100% emoji.

From the looks of it, Dogecoin Core developers are preparing to address Musk’s scaling concerns. The Dogecoin community has supported Musk’s scaling idea for quite some time but almost once a week someone asks: “when will Dogecoin transaction fees drop?”

What do you think about Elon Musk’s Dogecoin network scaling concerns and the recent Dogecoin Core development? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.