Contentious EIP-1559 Seeking Community Consensus as Ethereum Miner Revenue Hits an ATH

Ethereum fees are the talk of the town; everyone from small users to even big players feels the brunt of it.

Even some projects have fallen victim to the high fees, which are yet again on the rise. The average transaction fee in USD is back near ATH above $23; in ETH terms, it is at 0.013, and gas prices are nearing 200 Gwei again.

Last month, Ethereum miners raked in nearly $830 million in revenue, over $325 million of which was from transaction fees. In February so far, the revenue has reached $678 million, with fees accounting for more than half of it ($357 million).

📈 Ethereum Miner Revenue at an ATH. pic.twitter.com/DwVUOZkbvj

— Documenting Ethereum 🧾 (@DocumentEther) February 15, 2021

And here comes Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559, which will bring the largest change to how the users will bid for blockspace. The proposal targets to decrease network fees by increasing block size.

First proposed in March 2019 by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, the EIP 1559 aims to offer better UX and security while preventing economic abstraction, which is the ability to pay fees in an asset besides Ether.

As we reported, the world’s largest asset manager, Grayscale, praised the proposal, which it said may also serve as a deflationary mechanism and creating a “positive feedback loop for Ether’s price.”

Please retweet and signal your support for EIP 1559 if you’re in favor of it.

I haven’t personally met a single person who isn’t excited for / overwhelmingly supportive of it, and I’m worried a very loud minority (miners) are going to slow things down / try to block it. https://t.co/aalsnqcuaY

— billΞ.eth (@BillyLuedtke) January 30, 2021

While many are in support of it like F2Pool, not everyone is in favor.

Bitfly, one of the largest Ether mining pools, is one of those who are against the proposal and believes the update would put Ethereum’s future at risk. In January they said,

“We have been supporting Ethereum with its perfect imperfections since genesis and would like to encourage the developers to look into solutions that do not rely on fee burning in order to get the buy in of the miner community for EIP-1559.”

Flexpool, which is a tiny mining pool, has been against the proposal and gaining some support from other pools.

As such, a community call will be held next week to share their opinion on the update that is supposed to burn the majority of the transaction fee instead of offering it to the network miners.

Join me the panel on Feb 26. We will discuss on how much money #No1559 people had spent on #DDoS attacks and organized #FUD campaigns against the @ethereum community. https://t.co/jqmRUjYNA6

— Chun #hodl (@satofishi) February 10, 2021

The call will bring all the stakeholders together to understand the “pressing need of the proposal and address any concerns in hopes of coming to a community consensus.”