The Ethereum Foundation announced Wednesday that onchain fees will not be reduced by the Merge as proof-of work to proof-ofstake transition (PoW), which is highly anticipated, takes place in 29 days. According to the Ethereum Foundation’s Merge update, the Ethereum network has printed the most affordable onchain fees in the past month since 2020.
Ethereum Foundation Clarifies ‘Gas Fees Are a Product of Network Demand’ — The Merge Does Not Significantly Change Any Parameters That Directly Influence Network Capacity or Throughput
The Ethereum Foundation wishes to inform the public that, while The Merge will be moved from PoW-to PoS, there are no fees. The statement was added to the foundation’s definition and summary of The Merge hosted on ethereum.org.
This page was last updated in August 2022. The Ethereum developers will meet for the first time on August 18, 2022.
“Gas fees are a product of network demand relative to the network’s capacity,” the website’s newly updated summary explains. “The Merge deprecates the use of proof-of-work, transitioning to proof-of-stake for consensus, but does not significantly change any parameters that directly influence network capacity or throughput.”
Although transaction fees on Ethereum are not going to change with The Merge users will need layer 2 (L2) scaling solutions in order to get lower fees and then wait for future Ethereum upgrades. The Merge will see Ethereum implement The Surge and The Verge as well as The Purge and The Splurge.
The Surge is designed to improve scaling through zero-knowledge rollups. Ethereum’s The Verge transition will apply Verkle trees in order to achieve statelessness by using the Merkle proof upgrade. Even though fees will not be reduced right away, Ethereum’s onchain fees have been at the lowest rates since 2020.
Bitinfocharts.com statistics indicate that the current average network fee is 0.01 ether, or $2.28 per transfer. Etherscan.io’s Gas Tracker is even lower showing a high fee is around 22 gwei or $0.85 per transaction.
Opensea Marketplace sales are $2.90 and Uniswap Swaps $7.47. On Wednesday, $2.19 is charged for transferring ERC20-like tethers (USDT). Loopring and Zksync have the lowest L2 fees. Sending ether can cost between $0.04 and $0.06.
Do you agree with the Ethereum Foundation’s clarification that The Merge does not lower website fees? We’d love to hear your views on the subject.
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