Ethereum mainnet fees have fallen to historic lows.
On December 7th, the average fee reached $0.03. This is 60% lower than the value recorded 30 days ago. 96% cheaper than a year ago.
These data can be seen in the following graph.
The average on December 6th was $0.0099. More than 800% lower than the value recorded after 1 daythis difference reflects volatility and how rates can fluctuate widely due to spikes in usage. Small fluctuations produce large percentages, especially when the values are very low.
Ethereum fee levels drop as activity increases
In appearance, is growing Adoption and use Layer 2 network (L2) This results in very little activity on L1 (and therefore lower fees). This will definitely reduce the pressure on base tier pricing. And keep them low.
However, if you check the indicator known as 《Gas used》 (gas consumed in L1), we reach a more accurate conclusion.
Gas consumption measures Total amount of work done by Ethereum mainnet Block by block, day by day, or any period of time. This includes everything from sending Ether (ETH), swapping, issuing NFTs, and depositing staking to some of the data exposed by L2.
In other words, major 《Gas used》 Involves greater activity in L1. As seen in the graph below, gas consumed on Ethereum has been increasing rapidly since the beginning of 2025 (after a notable plateau from 2021 to 2024), while fees have declined or remained low.
Therefore, the last graph alleviates the “L1 is cheaper because there is less activity” rationale.
Factors behind low Ethereum fees
The factors that explain the low level of interest rates are, first of all, Constant increase in gas limit per blockthe increase continued throughout 2025 as validators approved the gradual increase.
This increase reported by CriptoNoticias increased the total capacity of L1. To include operations and data in blocks. More space per block allows the network to absorb more activity without reaching congestion levels that increase fee costs.
With the arrival of the Fusaka update, the protocol has also set a new default limit of 60 million gas, the highest level the network will reach. It reinforced that trend.
In parallel, the rate price dynamics proposed by the EIP-1559 improvements will adjust the base rate depending on usage levels. If the blocks remain below the goal set by the protocol, Fees are on the decline.
The combination of higher gas limits and blocks not reaching saturation is one of the reasons why fees have fallen even during periods of increased activity on Ethereum’s base layer.
The emergence of blobs on Ethereum
Finally, there was one more important element. Integrating the use of blob (the space where L2 stores information) was introduced and optimized in successive updates of Dencun, Pectra, and Fusaka.
These mechanisms made some of the information sent by L2 private. Call data ((more expensive format with higher congestion impact) blobat low cost.
By moving that amount of information to more efficient channels, the network is now able to process more data. without pushing up base layer rates.
This allowed us to increase the number of operations placed in L1, but at a much lower average cost. blob This is cheap and does not directly compete with space intended for performing traditional transactions.
Taken together, these structural changes explain why Ethereum is experiencing its most affordable period against a backdrop of increased overall activity.
