Ethereum Gas Fee History
Ethereum Gas Fee HistoryEthereum gas has fallen roughly a hundredfold from its 2021 peak — the live standard price right now is 0.11 gwei. This page tells that story two ways: an interactive chart of recent history, and yearly averages back to 2020 with the protocol upgrade that defined each era. Free, no paywall. Updated July 2026.
Recent gas history (interactive)
Yearly averages, 2020 → 2026
| Year | Typical gas | Era | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | ~65 gwei | DeFi summer | Yield farming made 100+ gwei routine; peaks passed 500 during launches. |
| 2021 | ~100 gwei | NFT boom · EIP-1559 (Aug) | The most expensive year on record — mint days pushed past 1,000 gwei. EIP-1559 made fees predictable, not cheaper. |
| 2022 | ~40 gwei | Bear market · The Merge (Sep) | Demand cooled with prices. The Merge changed consensus, not fee mechanics — gas stayed demand-driven. |
| 2023 | ~35 gwei | L2 migration begins | Arbitrum/Optimism/Base absorbed a growing share of activity; memecoin waves still spiked L1 into the hundreds. |
| 2024 | ~15 gwei | Dencun / blobs (Mar) | EIP-4844 gave rollups their own cheap data lane. L2 fees collapsed ~10×, and L1 demand thinned in response. |
| 2025 | ~3 gwei | Pectra (May) | Sustained sub-5 gwei became the norm — levels that would have read as an outage in 2021. |
| 2026 (YTD) | ~1 gwei or less | The cheap-gas era | Single-digit and sub-1 gwei typical; the live number is in the title of this page. Congestion spikes still occur, but from a far lower floor. |
Yearly figures are approximate typical (median-flavored) values assembled from public block-explorer data, rounded to tell the order-of-magnitude story; intra-year spikes ran far above every figure shown. Table data is licensed CC BY 4.0 — cite this page.
The four events that shaped the chart
- EIP-1559 (August 2021) — replaced blind fee auctions with a protocol-set base fee that burns. Fees became predictable; the 2021 NFT frenzy kept them high anyway.
- The Merge (September 2022) — proof-of-stake arrived; fee mechanics didn't change. The 2022 fee decline was bear-market demand, not the Merge.
- Dencun / EIP-4844 (March 2024) — blobs gave rollups a dedicated cheap data lane. L2 fees dropped ~10× overnight, and L1 gas drifted down as activity migrated.
- Pectra (May 2025) — more blob capacity and account-abstraction groundwork; consolidated the sub-5-gwei norm that holds today.
The consequence for 2026: timing still matters within a day (quiet hours are routinely 2–3× cheaper than peaks — see cheap gas times), but the bigger lever is chain choice — the same transaction is 10–100× cheaper on an L2, priced live in the gas fee calculator.
Frequently asked questions
What is the highest Ethereum gas has ever been?
Sustained averages peaked in 2020–2021, when 100+ gwei was routine and major NFT mints or DeFi launches pushed spot prices past 1,000 gwei — individual swaps could cost hundreds of dollars. 2021 remains the most expensive year in Ethereum history.
Why are Ethereum gas fees so much lower now than in 2021?
Three compounding forces: EIP-1559 (2021) made pricing efficient; rollups moved most user activity to L2s; and Dencun (March 2024) gave rollups cheap blob data, collapsing their costs and pulling even more demand off L1. Less L1 demand at the same block capacity means a lower base fee.
Did the Merge lower gas fees?
No — a common misconception. The Merge (September 2022) replaced proof-of-work with proof-of-stake but did not change block capacity or fee mechanics. The big fee reductions came from EIP-1559 predictability and, above all, Dencun blobs in 2024.
Where can I see Ethereum gas fee history for free?
The chart on this page shows recent history interactively (up to 30 days), and the yearly table summarizes 2020–2026. Unlike paywalled chart services, all data here is free to read and the underlying live data is available through a free JSON API.
Will gas fees go back up?
Spikes still happen — a viral mint or market crash concentrates demand on L1 and the base fee responds within minutes. What has changed is the floor: with most routine activity on L2s, sustained multi-month 50+ gwei regimes like 2021 would need a structural demand shift back to L1.
Related ETH gas tools and guides
Want the raw history data?
The live gas and history feeds behind this chart are a free JSON API — no key required.