Ethereum’s NFT gas usage heads towards a two-year low as inscription demand takes over

exchange68September 13, 2024

0 0 2 minutes read

Definition

The relative amount (share) of gas consumed by the Ethereum network by category. Transactions are classified into one of the following categories:

NFTs: Transactions interacting with non-fungible tokens. This category includes of both token contract standards (ERC721, ERC1155), as well as NFT marketplaces (OpenSea, LooksRare, Rarible, SuperRare) for trading those.
DeFi: On-chain financial instruments and protocols implemented as smart contracts, including decentralized exchanges (DEXs). We include over 90+ DeFi protocols in this category, such as Uniswap, Etherdelta, 1inch, Sushiswap, Aave, and 0x.

Quick Take

Current gas usage for NFTs on Ethereum is roughly 20%, a new low for 2023 but just above the low of 16% in November.
This is partly due to the growth of Inscriptions and Ordinals in the Bitcoin ecosystem, which we expect to continue as a long-term trend.
DeFi is also at two-year lows, using less than 8% of the current gas usage.
Inscriptions are one of the main stories for 2023, which has surpassed 350,000 inscriptions year-to-date.

Inscriptions Total Count: (Source: Glassnode)

Analyst

James Van Straten

Former Lead Analyst at CryptoSlate

James fervently appreciates data, technology, and trend-spotting. As a tech and liberty maximalist, he hails Bitcoin as the 21st century’s paramount invention.

Disclaimer: Our writers’ opinions are solely their own and do not reflect the opinion of CryptoSlate. None of the information you read on CryptoSlate should be taken as investment advice, nor does CryptoSlate endorse any project that may be mentioned or linked to in this article. Buying and trading cryptocurrencies should be considered a high-risk activity. Please do your own due diligence before taking any action related to content within this article. Finally, CryptoSlate takes no responsibility should you lose money trading cryptocurrencies.