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

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.

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.

@jvs_btc LinkedIn Email James

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