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:ย 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:ย 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
James fervently appreciates data, technology, and trend-spotting. As a tech and liberty maximalist, he hails Bitcoin as the 21st century's paramount invention.
In this insight
Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain platform that enables the creation of smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps).