Ethereum: How to derive a moving average for the gas price

Retrieving Dynamic Average Gas Price for Ethereum Transactions

As an Ethereum developer, you’re likely interested in understanding how to retrieve the dynamic average gas price (or maxPriorityFeePerGas and maxFeePerGas) that drives your transactions. This value is essential for optimizing gas usage and ensuring optimal transaction processing times.

In this article, we’ll explore the process of retrieving these values using the Ethereum blockchain’s smart contracts.

Understanding Gas Prices

On the Ethereum network, gas prices are calculated based on several factors:

• Gas Price per Unit (Gwei): This is the base price for each unit of gas.

• Max Priority Fee (MPF) per Gas: The maximum amount that can be charged as a priority fee by a miner when they accept transactions from a sender with insufficient funds.

• Max Fee Per Gas (MF) per Transaction: The maximum amount that can be charged as a transaction fee for each gas unit.

Retrieving Dynamic Average Gas Price

To retrieve the dynamic average gas price, you’ll need to analyze the current gas prices and fees associated with transactions on the Ethereum network. Here are the steps:

Step 1: Gather Gas Price Data

You can use various tools or libraries to collect gas price data from the Ethereum blockchain. Some popular options include:

• ethers.js: A JavaScript library that provides a simple interface for querying Ethereum data.

• web3.js: A JavaScript library that allows you to interact with the Ethereum network and query data.

const ethers = require('ethers');

const web3 = new Web3(new ethers.providers.JsonRpcProvider('


// Get gas price for a specific transaction hash

async function getGasPrice(hash) {

  const transaction = await web3.eth.getTransaction(hash);

  const gasPrice = await transaction.gasPrice;

  return gasPrice;

}

Step 2: Analyze Transaction Fees

To calculate the dynamic average gas price, you’ll need to analyze the fees associated with each transaction. You can use the web3 library to retrieve transaction details and fees.

async function getTransactionFees(transactionHash) {

  const transaction = await web3.eth.getTransaction(transactionHash);

  const feeAmount = await transaction.fee;

  const gasPrice = await getGasPrice(transactionHash); // Use this value for your calculations

  return feeAmount + (gasPrice * 1000000); // Convert Gwei to Wei and add to fee amount in Wei

}

Step 3: Calculate Dynamic Average Gas Price

Now that you have the gas price and fees associated with each transaction, you can calculate the dynamic average gas price.

async function getDynamicAverageGasPrice() {

  let totalGasPrice = 0;

  let totalFees = 0;


  // Get all transactions from the Ethereum network

  const transactions = await web3.eth.getTransactionList();


  for (const transaction of transactions) {

    const gasPrice = await getGasPrice(transaction.hash);

    const feeAmount = await getTransactionFees(transaction.hash);


    if (feeAmount > totalFees + feeAmount) {

      // Update dynamic average gas price

      totalGasPrice += gasPrice;

      totalFees = 0;

    } else {

      totalFees += feeAmount;

    }

  }


  const dynamicAverageGasPrice = (totalGasPrice / transactions.length).toNumber();

  return dynamicAverageGasPrice;

}

Example Use Case

To demonstrate the usage of these functions, let’s create a simple application that displays the dynamic average gas price.