So what can we learn?

The supply side of Ethereum transactions does not really respond to demand. In the last eighteen months, the gas limit of Ethereum transactions has only been increased once, and that by only 20%. This inelastic supply means that everyone is competing for the same fixed amount of gas, and that prices change rapidly from small changes in demand.

The more you are willing to pay over the average, the higher the probability your transaction will go through quickly.

If you need “real-time” transactions, then you have to compete by paying more against everyone else who wants real-time transactions. If enough people are trying to do this at the same time, the required price can spike very rapidly.

In the near term, peak daily gas prices seemed likely to continue to rise, and sudden price spikes probably will increase in frequency.

If you care when your transaction will complete, you need to know if you are in a part of the day when prices are trending upwards or when prices are trending downwards. If prices are moving upwards and your transaction gets delayed, it can be many hours until prices come back down again to the same level.

If you don’t need real-time transactions, then schedule your transactions to run in the quieter part of the day. This can cut your spending on gas by more than 4x.

Many Ethereum transactions seem to be using a constant fixed pricing strategy that is less than optional. Pricing a transaction at fixed price, regardless of the underlying market dynamics at the time, seems to be worst of both worlds - either overpaying when market prices are low, or having delayed transactions when prices rise.

If you have an automated system signing your transactions, you don’t have to bid as high at first as you otherwise would. Rather you can price at a reasonable rate that is likely to be mined. If that transaction is not mined in a reasonable amount of time, then you create a second transaction with the same nonce and a higher gas price. With the same nonce, only one of these transactions will ever be mined. You then avoid having a transaction stuck for hours because of a price shift, without having to pay an exorbitant initial gas price for this guarantee.

A day of transaction gas prices on the Ethereum Blockchain

Ethereum users are biding against each other with each transaction for a slice of a fixed capacity network. The big spread of prices in each block indicates that most systems doing gas pricing are unsophisticated. You wouldn’t expect to go to the stock market and see one person offering and paying $450 per share of a company, in the middle of a crowd of people offering and paying $200 per share for the same company. Yet the prices paid in a single block cover a far bigger range than that.