Ethereum fees have been the topic of conversation lately, as they can get too high to make transacting affordable — is there a best time to transact?
We've got some time before Ethereum fees get cheaper.
Transaction fees on the Ethereum network have been increasing rapidly since late July 2020, when “the Summer DeFi Boom” visibly started. But the network congestion caused by increasing demand in DeFi did not end with the summer — it has only gotten worse. On Jan. 4 of this year, Ethereum fees reached an average of $17.44 per transaction.
And while Ethereum has started tackling the issue — the transition to a faster proof-of-stake mining algorithm could take years to complete.
In the meantime, it’s best to avoid 2-6PM UTC.
We broke down daily Ethereum fees by the hour, to highlight the best times to transact per region.
The box plot above shows average fees per day in 2020 for every hour. The bars are where most of the data falls. The black dots are outliers.
The data clearly shows fees are at their highest between 2-6pm UTC.
The best times to transact are instead between 1AM-3AM, 5AM-8AM, and 9PM to 11PM UTC.
Who Is Causing These Spikes in Fees?
💸 Whales or Smaller Wallets?
By looking at the transactions happening on Ethereum, we were able to find that Ethereum whales were transacting far more than smaller wallets. We defined whales as wallets that held over 20 ETH (~ USD 26,600 at the time of writing) throughout 2020. These larger wallets’ transaction activity coincided throughout with fee surges (first graph above).
🌍 Where Are They Located?
We also checked to see if accounts in Asia were more active than in North America, and we found that both regions have about the same amount of activity.
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