Ethereum founder explains why gas consumption rose after the London hard fork

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin explained why after the London hard fork gas consumption on the blockchain rose by 9%. According to him, this was influenced by the shortening of the average interval between blocks, underutilization of blocks before the upgrade, and the imperfection of the base fee adjustment mechanism.

Another fun analysis: why is post-London chain capacity ~9% higher than it was before?

Turns out the effect is evenly split between three causes: (i) ice age delay, (ii) not-always-full pre-London blocks, (iii) mathematical artefacts of EIP 1559 formula.https://t.co/xYmmDkVFmY

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 15, 2021

Buterin noted that after the upgrade the average daily gas consumption in the network rose from 92 billion to 100 billion.

Buterin noted that before activation of London the average time to generate a new block was about ~13.5 seconds. After the hard fork, the figure returned to a “long-term normal level” of about 13.1 seconds. The 3% difference could have had a significant impact on gas consumption.

According to Buterin, before the upgrade the maximum gas limit per block on Ethereum was 15 million, but not all blocks filled up to that cap. According to William Foxley of Compass Mining, in April 2021 miners on a daily basis left about 2% of blocks empty left.

“In general, we can assume that before the activation of London unused space was about 2-3%. After the upgrade 15 million — this is not the maximum, but the target. That means that if the average amount of gas used, including empty blocks, is below 15 million, the base rate will decrease until the figure returns to 15 million,” wrote Buterin.

Another factor is the imperfection of the base fee adjustment mechanism. Fully empty blocks decrease the fee by 12.5%, fully filled blocks increase it by the same percentage.

To keep the indicator constant, average block utilisation must be slightly above 50%; exactly how much depends on dispersion. Theoretically the base fee would remain unchanged if blocks are on average 53.13% full.

In practice, however, average block utilisation stands at 51.5%, which is 3% below the “target” level.

As Compass Mining analysts note, activation of EIP-1559 in the London hard fork will reduce miners’ revenues by 20-30%.

Follow ForkLog news on VK.