Ethereum L2 fees plummet, Optimism below $0.001, Base near zero dollars

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Dencun Cancun Upgrade Successful

The Dencun Cancun upgrade has integrated updates such as EIP-4844 and was officially activated around Epoch 269568, close to 10 p.m. on 3/13.

One of the updates, the new transaction format blobs, has significantly reduced Gas fees on multiple L2 public chains.

Ethereum's Dencun Cancun upgrade completed, multiple L2 gradually adopting updates

The Dencun upgrade is now live on the Ethereum mainnet bringing with it a host of EIPs including the beloved EIP-4844!

The blobs are here and a new era of Ethereum scalability has begun! pic.twitter.com/ZQwwUsmYVv

— sassal.eth/acc 🦇🔊 (@sassal0x) March 13, 2024

L2 Public Chain Gas Fee Substantially Reduced

During the Cancun upgrade livestream organized by the Ethereum Foundation, Terence Tsao, core developer of Offchain Labs, pointed out that some L2s are waiting for the network to stabilize further before submitting blob data to Ethereum, until the network becomes more stable.

For example, the Arbitrum Foundation stated that they will start using blob within the next 24 hours. Some L2s have already shown a significant drop in Gas fees:

Optimism: $0.001

Kelvin Fichter, core developer of Optimism, mentioned that the cost on the Optimism mainnet is now below $0.001.

He also reminded that sending $200 via Western Union from the United States to the Philippines costs $4 to $12.

The synthetic asset protocol Synthetix indicated that the cost of using Synthetix on Optimism has dropped from $3 to $0.00014.

Blobs just went live and you can send any amount of ETH on @Optimism OP Mainnet anywhere in the world right now for less than $0.001. Meanwhile, it costs $4-$12 to send $200 from the US to the Philippines with Western Union. Crypto is scaling. pic.twitter.com/AoM9hQNIGg

— smartcontracts.eth (✨🔴_🔴✨) (@kelvinfichter) March 14, 2024

Base: Nearly Zero Dollars

Jesse Pollak, developer of Base, mentioned that the cost on Base has dropped from $0.31 to $0.0005.

after 2 years of hard work, blobs are now live on @base

before: $0.31
after: $0.00 (but actually $0.0005)

wallets need to update to handle these cost reductions! pic.twitter.com/solIX9D4HM

— Jesse Pollak (jesse.xyz) 🛡️ (@jessepollak) March 14, 2024

Starknet: $0.01

According to a transaction screenshot from Starknet's official website, the on-chain fee is currently around $0.01.

gm blobs.

happy swapping pic.twitter.com/1vZH6K0xhJ

— Starknet 🦇🔊 (@Starknet) March 13, 2024

Based on data from L2 Fees and the official tweets mentioned above, the fees on Optimism are lower than other major L2s, with Base, built on Optimism technology, being even more cost-effective.

No Significant Price Reaction

After the upgrade, the price of ETH has remained around $4,000, and in the image below, Arbitrum ARB, Polygon MATIC, and STRK also did not show significant price increases.