Transaction fee economics in the Ethereum blockchain.

We study the economic determinants of transaction fees in the Ethereum blockchain. We estimate an empirical model based on queueing theory and analyze the factors determining the "gas price" (transaction cost per unit of service, "gas"). Using block‐ and transaction‐level data from the Ethereum bloc...

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Published in:Economic Inquiry Vol. 60; no. 1; pp. 265 - 293
Main Authors: Donmez, Anil, Karaivanov, Alexander
Format: Article
Published: Wiley-Blackwell Jan2022
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      tig:
        atl: Transaction fee economics in the Ethereum blockchain.
      aug:
        au:
          Donmez, Anil
          Karaivanov, Alexander
        affil: Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby British Columbia, , Canada
      su:
        Blockchains
        Queuing theory
        Gas prices
        Transaction costs
        Administrative fees
      sug:
        subj:
          Blockchains
          Queuing theory
          Gas prices
          Transaction costs
          Administrative fees
      keyword:
        blockchain
        Ethereum
        queueing theory
        time series
        transaction fees
        blockchain
        Ethereum
        queueing theory
        time series
        transaction fees
      ab: We study the economic determinants of transaction fees in the Ethereum blockchain. We estimate an empirical model based on queueing theory and analyze the factors determining the "gas price" (transaction cost per unit of service, "gas"). Using block‐ and transaction‐level data from the Ethereum blockchain, we show that changes in service demand significantly affect the gas price—when there is high block utilization, per‐unit fees increase on average, with strong nonlinear effect above 90% utilization. The transaction type is another important factor—larger fraction of regular transactions (direct transfers between users) is associated with higher gas price.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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