đ¸ Youâre probably overpaying for your Ethereum gas prices
Youâve decided you want to do something expensive on Ethereum. Maybe itâs deploying a new Aragon DAO. The transaction price in MetaMask (as of writing) is âŹ71. Ouch, thatâs a lot.
Most people donât know what this fee is for. That sucks. They could save on gas fees and go out for a nice dinner instead đ˛. Letâs take a look at what we can do to have both a DAO and make that dinner happen.
đŚ The MetaMask layers of confusion
Welcome at the first layer:
Notice that little âeditâ button up there? If you donât know what youâre doing it feels scary to click it right? Letâs be cheeky and press it anyway! Welcome at the second layer:
So much information! And, it seems the âŹ71 is already the cheapest possible!
False!
We still have the âadvancedâ section to go visit for the true adventurers. Letâs put on our helmet and dive into layer three:
This is where the magic happens; you can freely set the gas price. Iâve put it at 15 GWEI saving little over âŹ25!
âBut Beer! Thatâs off the charts and an âextreme lowâ warning is showing!â
Yeah! Who cares?
I recently did two transactions where I had set the price âoff the chartsâ. Letâs go through what I got told and what ended up happening.
- Recommended: 55 GWEI. Set at: 25 GWEI. Estimated wait time: > 1 hour. Actual wait time: 26 minutes. Saved: âŹ6,-
- Recommended: 25 GWEI. Set at: 15 GWEI. Estimated wait time: > 2 hours. Actual wait time: 3 minutes. Saved: âŹ1,50
If youâre in a hurry and you canât wait half an hour it makes sense to pay more. But, if youâre doing a transaction that is fine to take 2 hours, I bet you can pay way less than what youâre being told.
Go get your free dinner!
𼪠How MetaMask could help get your free dinner
It seems that MetaMask is biased towards fast transactions. The âslowâ option is still relatively fast. Why doesnât MetaMask show a âturtleâ option; where youâre only paying half the price but wait a few hours?
It seems to be a problem in the wider Ethereum community. Eth Gas Station doesnât even show a âslowâ option. Etherscan does but again the âslowâ option is still relatively fast.
I can only wonder how many people are overpaying to make a transaction happen now while they could have waited for a few hours.