Ethereum Transaction Fees: Historical Analysis

An application of the TRACE Content Template for analyzing Ethereum transaction fees over time against major network milestones.

Overview

This analysis tracks median weekly Ethereum transaction fees (in ETH and USD) from January 2020 through present day, overlaid with key protocol upgrades and ecosystem events:

Milestone	Date	Impact on Fees
Beacon Chain	Dec 2020	Proof-of-stake launch
Arbitrum	May 2021	First major L2 rollup
EIP-1559	Aug 2021	Fee burn mechanism
Optimism	Dec 2021	Optimistic rollup launch
The Merge	Sep 2022	PoW → PoS transition
Dencun (Blobs)	Mar 2024	EIP-4844 blob transactions
Pectra	May 2025	Account abstraction
Fusaka	Dec 2025	(Upcoming)

Key Findings

• Peak fees: ~$26 median during Nov 2021 bull market
• Post-Dencun collapse: Fees dropped 90%+ as L2s adopted blob transactions
• Current state: Sub-$0.10 median fees, lowest in Ethereum's history

Repository Structure

eth_fusaka/
├── REPORT.html                              # Final standalone HTML report
├── trace-metadata.json                      # TRACE website metadata
├── queries/
│   └── 01_median_weekly_tx_fees.sql         # Snowflake SQL query
├── data/
│   └── 01_median_weekly_tx_fees.json        # Query results (311 weeks)
├── visuals/
│   └── MULTI-LINE_median_weekly_tx_fees.html # Highcharts visualization
└── utils/
    └── swap_placeholder.py                  # Build utility for report assembly

Data Source

All data queried from Flipside Crypto via the Flipside MCP tools:

• ethereum.core.fact_transactions — transaction fees
• ethereum.price.ez_prices_hourly — ETH/USD prices

Usage

View the Report

Open REPORT.html in any browser, or view via GitHub raw:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fsc-data-science/eth_fusaka/main/REPORT.html

Rebuild with Fresh Data

1. Install UV:

   curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

2. Re-run the query via Flipside MCP and save to data/01_median_weekly_tx_fees.json

3. Inject data into visual:

   uv run python utils/swap_placeholder.py visuals/MULTI-LINE_median_weekly_tx_fees.html "{{DATA_01}}" data/01_median_weekly_tx_fees.json

4. Rebuild the final report using placeholders as documented in INSTRUCTIONS.md

About TRACE

This repository follows the TRACE Content Template pattern:

• 1 QUERY = 1 DATA (1:1 relationship)
• 1 DATA = 1+ VISUAL (1:many relationship)
• Self-contained HTML reports with embedded data and visualizations

License

MIT