# Empirical Analysis of EIP-1559: Transaction Fees, Waiting Time, and Consensus Security

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.05574 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05574/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jan 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [DAM: A Universal Dual Attention Mechanism for Multimodal Timeseries Cryptocurrency Trend Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.00522/) (2024)
- [Cryptocurrency Valuation: An Explainable AI Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12893/) (2022)
- [AI Ethics on Blockchain: Topic Analysis on Twitter Data for Blockchain Security](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06951/) (2022)
- [Blockchain Transaction Fee Forecasting: A Comparison of Machine Learning Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.08105/) (2023)
- [FinML-Chain: A Blockchain-Integrated Dataset for Enhanced Financial Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16277/) (2024)
- [On-Chain Decentralized Learning and Cost-Effective Inference for DeFi Attack Mitigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.16024/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A transaction fee mechanism (TFM) is an essential component of a blockchain protocol. However, a systematic evaluation of the real-world impact of TFMs is still absent. Using rich data from the Ethereum blockchain, the mempool, and exchanges, we study the effect of EIP-1559, one of the earliest-deployed TFMs that depart from the traditional first-price auction paradigm. We conduct a rigorous and comprehensive empirical study to examine its causal effect on blockchain transaction fee dynamics, transaction waiting times, and consensus security. Our results show that EIP-1559 improves the user experience by mitigating intrablock differences in the gas price paid and reducing users' waiting times. However, EIP-1559 has only a small effect on gas fee levels and consensus security. In addition, we find that when Ether's price is more volatile, the waiting time is significantly higher. We also verify that a larger block size increases the presence of siblings. These findings suggest new directions for improving TFMs.