obolnetwork/gas

Gas & Costs on Ethereum

What You Probably Got Wrong

Your gas estimate is 100-600x too high. Most LLMs confidently state gas is 10-30 gwei. The reality in February 2026 is 0.05-0.1 gwei.

• Base fee: ~0.05 gwei (not 30-100 gwei)
• Priority fee (tip): ~0.01-0.05 gwei
• ETH price: ~$1,960 (not $2,500-3,000)

What Things Actually Cost (Feb 2026)

| Action | Gas Used | Cost at 0.05 gwei | Cost at 1 gwei (spike) | Cost at 10 gwei (event) | |--------|----------|-------------------|------------------------|--------------------------| | ETH transfer | 21,000 | $0.002 | $0.04 | $0.41 | | ERC-20 transfer | ~65,000 | $0.006 | $0.13 | $1.27 | | ERC-20 approve | ~46,000 | $0.005 | $0.09 | $0.90 | | Uniswap V3 swap | ~180,000 | $0.018 | $0.35 | $3.53 | | NFT mint (ERC-721) | ~150,000 | $0.015 | $0.29 | $2.94 | | Simple contract deploy | ~500,000 | $0.049 | $0.98 | $9.80 | | ERC-20 deploy | ~1,200,000 | $0.118 | $2.35 | $23.52 | | Complex DeFi contract | ~3,000,000 | $0.294 | $5.88 | $58.80 |

Mainnet vs L2 Costs (Feb 2026)

| Action | Mainnet (0.05 gwei) | Arbitrum | Base | zkSync | Scroll | |--------|---------------------|----------|------|--------|--------| | ETH transfer | $0.002 | $0.0003 | $0.0003 | $0.0005 | $0.0004 | | ERC-20 transfer | $0.006 | $0.001 | $0.001 | $0.002 | $0.001 | | Swap | $0.015 | $0.003 | $0.003 | $0.005 | $0.004 | | NFT mint | $0.015 | $0.002 | $0.002 | $0.004 | $0.003 | | ERC-20 deploy | $0.118 | $0.020 | $0.020 | $0.040 | $0.030 |

Key insight: Mainnet is now cheap enough for most use cases. L2s are 5-10x cheaper still.

Why Gas Dropped 95%+

1. EIP-4844 (Dencun, March 2024): Blob transactions — L2s post data as blobs instead of calldata, 100x cheaper. L2 batch cost went from $50-500 to $0.01-0.50.
2. Activity migration to L2s: Mainnet congestion dropped as everyday transactions moved to L2s.
3. Pectra (May 2025): Doubled blob capacity (3→6 target blobs).
4. Fusaka (Dec 2025): PeerDAS + 8-second slots.

L2 Cost Components

L2 transactions have two cost components:

1. L2 execution gas — paying the sequencer
2. L1 data gas — paying Ethereum for data availability (blobs post-4844)

Example: Swap on Base

• L2 execution: ~$0.0003
• L1 data (blob): ~$0.0027
• Total: ~$0.003

Real-World Cost Examples

Deploy a production ERC-20 on mainnet: ~$0.50 (was $200-500 in 2021-2023)

DEX aggregator doing 10,000 swaps/day:

• Mainnet: $150/day ($4,500/month)
• Base L2: $10/day ($300/month)

NFT collection mint (10,000 NFTs):

• Mainnet: $150 total
• Arbitrum: $10 total

Practical Fee Settings (Feb 2026)

// Rule of thumb for current conditions
maxFeePerGas: "0.5-1 gwei"        // headroom for spikes
maxPriorityFeePerGas: "0.01-0.05 gwei"  // enough for quick inclusion

Spike detection:

const feeData = await provider.getFeeData();
const baseFee = Number(feeData.maxFeePerGas) / 1e9;
if (baseFee > 5) console.warn(`Gas spike: ${baseFee} gwei. Consider waiting.`);

Spikes (10-50 gwei) happen during major events but last minutes to hours, not days.

Checking Gas Programmatically

If you're about to sign a transaction, the deterministic fee oracle in ethereum-local-wallet is the simplest path — no inference required:

python3 scripts/signer.py gas-info --network mainnet
python3 scripts/signer.py gas-info --network base

It samples eth_feeHistory (median 50th-percentile tip across the last 20 blocks) and clamps to per-chain bounds, so quiet mainnet stays around 0.05 gwei and L2s stay sub-gwei. sign-tx / send-tx apply the same logic automatically; gas-info is for inspection.

For ad-hoc reads:

cast is available inside OpenClaw pods. Use the ethereum-networks skill for convenience:

# Via rpc.sh wrapper (simplest)
sh scripts/rpc.sh gas-price
sh scripts/rpc.sh base-fee

# Via cast directly
cast gas-price --rpc-url http://erpc.erpc.svc.cluster.local/rpc/mainnet
cast base-fee --rpc-url http://erpc.erpc.svc.cluster.local/rpc/mainnet
cast blob-basefee --rpc-url http://erpc.erpc.svc.cluster.local/rpc/mainnet

# Estimate gas for a specific call
cast estimate 0xA0b86991c6218b36c1d19D4a2e9Eb0cE3606eB48 \
  "transfer(address,uint256)" 0xRecipient 1000000 \
  --rpc-url http://erpc.erpc.svc.cluster.local/rpc/mainnet

Note: scripts/rpc.sh is from the ethereum-networks skill. Copy it or reference it directly.

When to Use Mainnet vs L2

Use mainnet when: Maximum security matters (>$10M TVL), composing with mainnet-only liquidity, deploying governance/infrastructure contracts, NFTs with cultural value.

Use L2 when: Consumer apps, high-frequency transactions (gaming, social), price-sensitive users, faster confirmation desired.

Hybrid: Many projects store value on mainnet, handle transactions on L2.

Live Gas Trackers

• https://etherscan.io/gastracker
• https://ultrasound.money
• L2 costs: Arbiscan, Basescan, etc.

Data Freshness

Last verified: 2026-02-13 | Base fee: ~0.05 gwei | ETH: ~$1,960

If this date is more than 30 days old, verify current gas with:

cast base-fee --rpc-url http://erpc.erpc.svc.cluster.local/rpc/mainnet

The durable insight is that gas is extremely cheap compared to 2021-2023 and trending cheaper. Specific numbers may drift but the order of magnitude is stable.