Historical retrospective · Ethereum
London introduced Ethereum’s EIP-1559 fee mechanism
The August 2021 London upgrade introduced a base fee that adjusts with block demand, alongside an optional priority fee for users seeking faster inclusion.
The base fee is burned rather than paid directly to block producers, changing fee estimation and ETH’s transaction economics.
EIP-1559 improved the structure of fee quoting but did not make gas costs fixed or congestion disappear.
A clearer fee model can help users plan; it cannot guarantee cheap transactions when demand exceeds block capacity.
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