The EIP-1559 upgrade, which was integrated into Ethereum during the London hard fork on August 5, 2021, was supposed to reduce the volatility of transaction fees on the cryptocurrency network.
However, even now, with the renewed popularity of decentralized protocols and NFT tokens, the fees for ETH transfers are sometimes too high. The recently released tool from the developers of the startup Infura should improve the situation.
Recall that Infura is a network of nodes hosted in the cloud. Many projects use its services to interact with the Ethereum network and thus save their time. Still, they do not need to spend resources on keeping their nodes working and monitoring their state – it is easier to shift this responsibility onto others.
Note that this tactic once created big problems for the Ethereum blockchain. In particular, in November 2020, Infura faced a malfunction in the work of its nodes, due to which many projects simply stopped working. The latter included MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, CryptoKitties, and even the Compound platform. At the same time, outdated versions of the wallet that have not been updated to the current ones became the reason for the problems. Read more about the situation in a separate article.
At the same time, the commissions in the Ethereum network are really high. We checked the actual data: the growth in the average cost of interaction with the blockchain began to increase in August. The local peak of the indicator at the level of 59.59 dollars was recorded on September 7.
Average level of commissions on the Ethereum network for the last three months
Against this background, the share of transaction fees in the total income of miners in September rose to a record level of 75 percent. Until the end of the month, the situation may change, but so far this is the maximum in the history of the blockchain.
Share of commissions for transactions in the Ethereum network
In this regard, developers are looking for a way to reduce the volume of consumed transactions. Here is one of them.
How do I pay less for Ethereum transfers?
First, a little theory behind the current problem in Ethereum. Decentralized applications based on cryptocurrency constantly interact with its blockchain through transactions, for each of them they pay a commission. Previously, its size was calculated using the auction model, which means that a transaction with a higher commission was the first to get into the block.
Ethereum fees at the moment
The integration of EIP-1559 allowed the transition to a new model. Now the concept of the base commission has been introduced, which is burned in each block and is automatically regulated depending on the load on the network. In addition to it, users can also «tip» miners so that their transaction can be processed a little faster.
Thanks to the upgrade, Ethereum users began to pay significantly less for each transfer, and the benefits for decentralized applications increased similarly.
Dynamics of Ethereum price changes over the last 30 days
However, when the load rises to high levels, the network again returns to exorbitant commissions, which now, in addition, cannot be lowered. However, Infura can solve the problem thanks to several mechanisms at once. First, the platform uses an algorithm that automatically adjusts fees and tips in real time. Thus, users will pay exactly what they need.
Secondly, Infura removes from the queue transactions that will not go through due to an incorrectly set commission, thereby reducing the load on the network. Finally, Infura customers can deposit funds to work with the ETH blockchain in advance, and the platform will independently dispose of them with the greatest efficiency, Decrypt reports.
Infura
We believe the Infura initiative will have a good impact on what is happening with the ETH network. However, before its transition to the new Proof-of-Stake algorithm, the technical characteristics of the blockchain will remain the same, which means that the network will only cope with 15 transactions per second. Accordingly, now the most important thing is to reduce the cost of transactions in any available way, since Ethereum users clearly do not plan to forget about the industry of decentralized finance and NFT tokens.
In the meantime, fees remain high, we recommend using the 2Miners mining pool. Thanks to the PPLNS mode, it will be possible to earn money on mining the same Ethereum even with one video card. Information on production is available on the pool’s website.
