Gas Fee Tracker: Ethereum, L2s and Bitcoin
A transaction fee is the gas it uses times the gas price. This page shows live gas prices for Ethereum and six other EVM chains, what common actions cost in dollars at that price, and current Bitcoin fee rates. Layer 2 rollups are usually far cheaper than Ethereum mainnet, but the figures here leave out their L1 data fee.
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Live EVM gas prices and costs
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Bitcoin network fees
How Ethereum fees work (EIP-1559)
Since the London upgrade in August 2021, every Ethereum fee has two parts. The base fee is set by the protocol for each block and burned. It moves automatically: up to 12.5% higher after a block that is more than half full, lower after a block that is less than half full. The priority fee (tip) goes to the validator and decides who gets in first when blocks are busy.
Your wallet sends a max fee and a max priority fee. You pay the current base fee plus your tip, never more than the max, and the difference is not charged. The total cost is gas used × (base fee + tip). A plain ETH transfer always uses 21,000 gas; contract interactions use more.
Worked example: at a 2 gwei base fee plus a 0.1 gwei tip, a token swap using 150,000 gas costs 150,000 × 2.1 gwei = 315,000 gwei = 0.000315 ETH. Multiply by the ETH price for dollars.
When to transact and how to pay less
- Check the base fee right before sending. Fees jump during sharp price moves, hyped token launches, mints and airdrops, then fall back. Older advice about a fixed "cheap hour" no longer holds reliably, so look at the live number instead.
- If it is not urgent, set a lower max fee and wait. The transaction stays pending until the base fee drops below your cap.
- Use a layer 2 for small or frequent transactions. Swaps and transfers on Arbitrum, Optimism or Base usually cost a small fraction of mainnet.
- Batch and avoid needless approvals. Each approval is a separate transaction; unlimited approvals save gas but carry security risk if the contract is compromised.
- Failed transactions still cost gas. Double-check slippage and balances before confirming.
Layer 1 vs layer 2 fees after Dencun
Rollups run transactions on their own chain and post compressed batches to Ethereum. Their fee is L2 execution fee + L1 data fee. The Dencun upgrade (March 13, 2024) added blob space (EIP-4844) for this data, which is priced separately from normal gas and made rollup fees much cheaper. The L1 data fee is still usually the largest part of an L2 fee and rises when blob demand rises.
| Network | Fee paid in | What the fee covers | Security |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum mainnet | ETH | Execution (base fee burned + tip) | Ethereum itself |
| Arbitrum, Optimism, Base (rollups) | ETH | L2 execution + L1 data (blobs) | Settles to Ethereum |
| Polygon PoS, BNB Chain, Avalanche C-Chain | POL, BNB, AVAX | Execution on their own chain | Their own validator sets |
| Bitcoin | BTC (sats) | Block space by size (sat/vB) | Bitcoin proof of work |
Frequently asked questions
What is gwei?
Gwei is a billionth of one ETH (10^-9 ETH). Gas prices are quoted in gwei per unit of gas. The fee for a transaction is the gas it uses multiplied by the gas price: a plain ETH transfer uses 21,000 gas, so at 1 gwei it costs 0.000021 ETH.
How does the Ethereum fee (EIP-1559) work?
Every block has a base fee that the protocol sets automatically and burns. It rises by up to 12.5% after a block that is more than half full and falls after a block that is less than half full. On top of that you add a priority fee (tip) for the validator. Your wallet sets a max fee; you pay base fee plus tip and any unused headroom is refunded.
Why are layer 2 fees so much lower?
Rollups such as Arbitrum, Optimism and Base execute transactions off Ethereum and post compressed batches back to it. Since the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 (EIP-4844) they post that data as cheap "blobs", which cut L2 fees sharply. An L2 fee has two parts: the L2 execution fee and an L1 data fee, and the data fee is usually the larger part.
Why might the L2 costs on this page look lower than my wallet quote?
The costs shown for Arbitrum, Optimism and Base are the L2 execution fee only, calculated from the live gas price. They leave out the L1 data fee, which depends on the transaction's size and on Ethereum blob prices at that moment. Your wallet includes both, so its quote will usually be higher.
When is the cheapest time to send an Ethereum transaction?
When the network is quiet. Fees spike during sharp market moves, popular token launches, mints and airdrops, and fall back when activity calms down. There is no reliable fixed "cheap hour" any more; check the live base fee before sending, and if it is not urgent, set a lower max fee and wait.
How are Bitcoin fees different?
Bitcoin fees are priced in satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB) of transaction size, not per unit of computation. Miners pick the highest-paying transactions first, so the rate you need depends on how full the mempool is. A simple one-input, two-output SegWit payment is about 141 vB.