Ethereum gas fees near historic lows as base fee holds under 0.1 gwei
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Ethereum gas fees sat near their lowest levels in years in April 2026, when a basic ETH transfer on the main network cost roughly $0.01 and base fees averaged below 0.1 gwei, according to CoinCentral. That figure, drawn from Dwellir data, sits far from the 480 gwei average recorded during the DeFi surge of 2020.
CoinCentral’s explainer traces how the fee model works, why prices swing, and what pushed costs down. The fee is paid in ETH; one gwei is one billionth of an ETH.
Key facts
- A simple ETH transfer uses 21,000 gas, while a Uniswap swap consumes 150,000 to 300,000 gas and complex DeFi actions can exceed 500,000.
- EIP-1559, introduced in the London upgrade of August 2021, split the fee into a burned base fee and a validator tip; more than 4.52 million ETH has been burned since, per Dwellir.
- The base fee can rise or fall by up to 12.5% per block depending on how full the prior block was.
- Ethereum’s gas limit grew from 30 million in 2021 to 60 million, while mainnet blocks now run about 25% to 35% full against a 50% target.
- The Dencun upgrade of March 2024 added blob transactions under EIP-4844, cutting Layer 2 data costs by 10 to 100 times.
How the fee is assembled
Before August 2021, users named a gas price and miners took the highest bids, a first-price auction that Dwellir says left people overpaying or waiting. The current formula is gas used multiplied by the sum of the base fee and the priority fee. The protocol sets the base fee and burns it; the tip goes to the validator.
Ethereum.org’s worked example has Jordan send 1 ETH to Taylor: 21,000 gas at a 10 gwei base fee plus a 2 gwei tip comes to 252,000 gwei, or 0.000252 ETH. The validator receives 0.000042 ETH and 0.00021 ETH is burned. Most wallets choose both numbers for users, and Ledger’s app offers slow, medium and fast settings.
Gas limits act as a ceiling. A 50,000 limit on a standard transfer returns the unused 29,000, while a 20,000 limit is rejected at validation and charged nothing. A transaction that runs out of gas mid-execution has its changes reverted but still consumes everything provided, which Ledger confirms is not refundable.
Why block space got cheap
Base fees move with block fullness: a full block lifts the next base fee by up to 12.5%, an empty one lowers it by the same amount, and prices refresh roughly every 12 seconds. Ethereum.org’s example, starting from a 36 million gas limit at 100 gwei, shows the base fee reaching 202.7 gwei after seven consecutive full blocks, and passing 10 million gwei if blocks stayed full for 100 blocks — a level users would never pay.
Demand spikes follow familiar events: NFT mints, liquidations, token launches, airdrop claims and bursts of DeFi activity. CryptoKitties in November 2017 was an early case that pushed developers toward scaling work. Fees also run lower from 02:00 to 05:00 UTC on weekends and highest from Tuesday to Thursday between 14:00 and 18:00 UTC, when US and European users overlap.
The 2026 lows stem from two shifts. Doubling the gas limit expanded each block, and record shares of activity — often more than 90% of transaction volume, per Dwellir — moved to Layer 2s such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Base and zkSync. Under light congestion, CoinCentral’s figures put an Arbitrum transfer at $0.005 to $0.008 and a Base transfer at $0.001 to $0.01. Layer 2 fees split into cheap execution and a larger data-posting charge.
Users can still trim costs by timing transactions, checking Etherscan’s live gwei readings, choosing slower speeds for non-urgent transfers, batching actions and moving routine swaps to a Layer 2. Developers can pack storage into fewer 32-byte slots, emit events instead of writing storage, and use constants or immutables.
Why it matters
Cheap mainnet blocks change the economics of building on Ethereum: routine transfers and small DeFi actions no longer carry a meaningful fixed cost, while oversized fees have shifted to the Layer 2s where most activity now happens. That reverses the 2020–2021 pattern, when average fees passed $20 and hit $53 during the 2021 NFT boom. The base-fee mechanism itself is unchanged, so costs will climb again if mainnet demand outgrows the enlarged blocks.
What to watch
The base fee’s behavior depends on whether mainnet blocks stay below the 50% target; sustained demand that fills them would resume the 12.5% per-block increases. Layer 2 costs will also track the blob fee market introduced with Dencun and the price of ETH, since fees are denominated in ETH.
This article summarizes reported fee data for general information and is not financial advice. Crypto markets and network fees are volatile and can change quickly.
Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment, financial or trading advice. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile. Always do your own research.
Source: CoinCentral
