[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":19},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-content-en-eip-1559-explained":3},{"slug":4,"title":5,"excerpt":6,"description":7,"bodyHtml":8,"faqItems":9},"eip-1559-explained","EIP-1559 Explained: Base Fee, Priority Tips and the ETH Burn","Since 2021, every Ethereum transaction pays a protocol-set base fee that is burned, plus an optional tip. Here is how EIP-1559 pricing really works, what max fee actually means, and what it changed — and didn't.","EIP-1559 explained: how Ethereum's base fee is set and burned, priority fees and max fee, why gas became more predictable but not cheaper, and how L2s reuse the same model.","\u003Ch2>Gas before EIP-1559: the blind auction\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>Until 2021, Ethereum priced gas with a first-price auction: every transaction named its own gas price, miners took the highest bidders, and everyone else guessed. The result was systematic overpaying — you bid high to be safe, and there was no protocol-level signal of what a \"fair\" price was at any moment. Fee estimation was folklore. EIP-1559, shipped in the London upgrade in August 2021, replaced that auction with an algorithmic price plus a small tip — and, famously, set the main fee on fire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>What EIP-1559 changed\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>The redesign has three parts. Each block now carries a \u003Cstrong>base fee\u003C\u002Fstrong> — a per-gas price computed by the protocol itself, identical for every transaction in the block. Blocks became \u003Cem>elastic\u003C\u002Fem>: they target a set amount of gas but can stretch to roughly double under load, giving the network a pressure valve. And the base fee is \u003Cstrong>burned\u003C\u002Fstrong> — destroyed outright rather than paid to the validator. What the validator receives is only the optional \u003Cstrong>priority fee\u003C\u002Fstrong> (the tip) you add on top.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>The base fee: set by protocol, burned by design\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>The base fee adjusts mechanically, block by block: if the previous block was more than half full, it rises (by up to 12.5%); if less than half full, it falls. Sustained demand therefore compounds the price upward until demand relents — no auctions, no guessing, just a thermostat. Burning it serves two purposes. Economically, it removes the incentive for block producers to manipulate or game the fee they would otherwise collect. And monetarily, it ties ETH's supply to usage: every transaction destroys a little ETH, the canonical example of the fee-sink model we describe in \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-is-a-token-burn\">our token burn explainer\u003C\u002Fa>.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>What you actually configure: tip and max fee\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>A modern Ethereum transaction sets two numbers. The \u003Cem>priority fee\u003C\u002Fem> is the tip per unit of gas that goes to the validator — the nudge that gets you included promptly when blocks are contested. The \u003Cem>max fee\u003C\u002Fem> is your ceiling: the most per gas you are willing to pay in total. At execution you pay base fee plus tip, never more than your ceiling, and the unused difference is refunded. If the base fee climbs above your max fee before inclusion, the transaction simply waits — which is why a transaction can sit \"pending\" through a demand spike and confirm on its own once fees cool off.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>Did EIP-1559 make gas cheaper?\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>No — and it never promised to. Fees are still set by demand for block space; a popular mint will still price people out. What changed is \u003Cem>predictability\u003C\u002Fem>: the protocol now tells you the current price instead of making you bid blind, chronic overpayment is largely gone, and refunds of the unused max fee are automatic. Think of it as replacing a haggling bazaar with a posted price that moves. The posted price can still be painful; at least you can read it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>Beyond mainnet: L2s and the 2026 fee stack\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>EIP-1559's design proved durable enough that most major L2s adopted the same base-fee mechanism for their own execution gas. An L2 transaction's real cost, though, has a second component: publishing data back to Ethereum, which since the introduction of blob transactions in 2024 has its own separate fee market. As of 2026, \"gas\" on an EVM chain is really a small stack of 1559-style markets — a detail your wallet increasingly hides, as we cover in \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fblog\u002Fcrypto-gas-fees-explained\">crypto gas fees explained\u003C\u002Fa>.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>How WATS uses this\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>EIP-1559 made gas legible — but you still need the native coin of each chain to pay it, which is the half of the problem \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fhot-wallet\">WATS\u003C\u002Fa> removes. In the WATS Hot Wallet, every action — transfers, swaps, staking — is charged in one token, \u003Cstrong>ATS\u003C\u002Fstrong>, instead of the chain's native gas: on EVM an \u003Cstrong>ERC-4337 paymaster\u003C\u002Fstrong> settles the actual base fee and tip in ETH on your behalf (the burn happens exactly as the protocol demands — see \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-is-gas-abstraction\">gas abstraction\u003C\u002Fa>), while Solana and TON use an equivalent fee-payer\u002Frelayer. The ATS fee tracks the live network cost — it changes what you hold, not what the network charges. Collected ATS is itself burned, from a 100M supply toward a 30M floor, and the wallet stays non-custodial: you hold your keys, WATS never holds one. WATS is the first and only wallet to combine ERC-4337 and OFT single-token fees with that burn; the mechanics live on the \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fats-fee\">ATS fee page\u003C\u002Fa>.\u003C\u002Fp>",[10,13,16],{"q":11,"a":12},"What happens to the burned base fee in Ethereum?","It is destroyed — removed from ETH's supply permanently. The base fee is not paid to validators; they receive only the priority tip. Burning it removes the incentive for block producers to game the fee mechanism and ties ETH's monetary supply to network usage: the busier Ethereum is, the more ETH is burned.",{"q":14,"a":15},"Why is my transaction pending even though I set a max fee?","Most likely the base fee rose above your max fee, or your priority tip is too low for current competition. A transaction whose ceiling is below the going rate is not rejected — it waits in the mempool and will confirm by itself if fees fall back under your ceiling. You can also usually replace it with the same nonce and a higher max fee to confirm sooner.",{"q":17,"a":18},"If I pay fees in another token, does that bypass EIP-1559?","No. The protocol always collects the base fee and tip in ETH. What token-denominated fee models change is who fronts that ETH: with an ERC-4337 paymaster, the paymaster pays the native gas — base fee burned as usual — and charges you in a token instead. In WATS that token is ATS, one fee asset across EVM, Solana and TON, with the collected ATS burned from 100M toward a 30M floor.",1784634268869]