Over Half a Month Since the London Upgrade: What Changes Have Occurred in the Ethereum Ecosystem?
It has been over half a month since the London upgrade. When the Ethereum mainnet reached block height 12,965,000 on August 5, five improvement proposals including EIP-1559, EIP-3198, EIP-3529, and EIP-3554 were officially deployed. We provided a detailed analysis of the London upgrade and its five improvement proposals in the previous article "Ethereum London Upgrade Confirmed to Deploy These 5 EIPs — Which One Are You Most Bullish On?", so we won't repeat that here. In this article, we will focus on observing changes in Ethereum on-chain trading fees, the amount of base fee burned, and issuance rate changes over the past half month. We will also discuss the potential opportunities and challenges that the rise of Game Fi and the metaverse may bring to the Ethereum ecosystem.
London Upgrade: Over Half a Month Later — How Is It Performing?
According to statistics from the watchtheburn website, over the past half month, the Ethereum network has cumulatively burned more than 76,000 ETH in base fees (as of 11:00 AM Hong Kong Time on August 23, 2021). During the same period, the total Ethereum network issuance was 237,000 ETH, with a net issuance of 161,000 ETH. This means that since EIP-1559 went live, 32.07% of newly issued ETH has been burned. During the same period, Ethereum miners received only 28,000 ETH in tips — less than 40% of the amount burned.
Ethereum network base fee burn status since EIP-1559 went live on August 5, 2021, Source: watchtheburn
However, it is worth noting that so far, the Ethereum network has not yet entered the deflationary state that many had speculated about. To be precise, the burning of base fees has reduced Ethereum's inflation rate. According to the latest statistics from watchtheburn, the burn rate over the past half month has roughly reduced the Ethereum network's inflation rate from 4.2% to around 3%. Additionally, since the scale of base fee burning is positively correlated with the number of on-chain transactions on Ethereum, if the number of on-chain transactions on Ethereum surges again in the future, a deflationary state for the Ethereum network remains worth anticipating.
For example, looking at the recent Ethereum network base fee burn leaderboard, OpenSea, which focuses on NFT trading, ranks first with 9,130 ETH burned — roughly equal to the combined burn amount of the second and third-ranked entities combined. Moreover, it is worth noting that Ronin Bridge, ranked third, is an Ethereum sidechain built by Axie Infinity, the leading Game Fi project, to improve trading speed. In just over half a month, it has cumulatively burned more than 4,000 ETH. If OpenSea and Axie Infinity's burned ETH are combined, the total exceeds 13,000 ETH, accounting for 17.1% of the total burn during the same period. Game Fi and NFT are trending toward surpassing the 2020 DeFi Summer.
Recent Ethereum network base fee burn leaderboard, Source: qkl123
Next, let's look at the changes in Ethereum on-chain trading fees and miner revenue after EIP-1559 went live. According to OK Link's EIP-1559 special data, from January to August 2021, the highest daily miner revenue occurred on February 23, at 47,800 ETH, while on August 5, the day of the London upgrade, miners' fee revenue was 17,487 ETH. The following day it dropped to 14,813 ETH, and over the next half month, it remained below 17,000 ETH. The lowest daily revenue occurred on August 22, at 14,287 ETH. This shows that after EIP-1559 went live, it did have an impact on Ethereum miner revenue. Comparing the average miner revenue over the past month, miners' revenue has decreased by approximately 16%.
Recent Ethereum miner revenue and trading fee trends, Source: OK Link
As we know, when Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed EIP-1559, the core problem he aimed to solve was reducing users' fee levels by changing the method of paying gas fees to miners, thereby alleviating network congestion during peak periods. So, half a month after EIP-1559 went live, have on-chain trading fees on Ethereum decreased?
Ethereum daily average trading fees, Source: OK Link
Based on the OK Link statistics above, regarding the recent Ethereum daily average trading fee trend, EIP-1559 going live has not brought a significant reduction in fees for users. Specifically, on August 5, the daily average trading fee was 0.0043 ETH. Over the following half month, fees generally showed an upward trend, rising to a high of 0.0078 ETH. It was not until August 22 that it fell back to around 0.0033 ETH — one of the few records below the 0.0043 ETH level in recent times.
Of course, to comprehensively assess the reasons why Ethereum on-chain trading fees did not decrease significantly after EIP-1559 went live, there is another key data point to focus on — namely, the change in daily on-chain transaction volume during the same period. In other words, the above conclusion is only meaningful if the daily transaction volume on the Ethereum network during the same period did not change significantly. If the on-chain transaction volume increased substantially during the same period, or even exceeded the fee increase, then a reassessment of EIP-1559's impact would be necessary.
Changes in daily Ethereum on-chain transactions since January 2021, Source: OK Link
However, according to OK Link's statistics, from January to August 2021, except for a period from mid-April to mid-May when daily transactions exceeded 1.5 million, Ethereum's daily on-chain transaction volume was mostly below 1.5 million for most of the time. On August 5, the full-day transaction count was 1.191 million. In the following period, it generally fluctuated between 1.126 million and 1.262 million daily. Even calculated at the peak of 1.262 million, the increase compared to August 5 was only 5.96% — far below the maximum on-chain fee increase during the same period (approximately 81.4%).
Finally, let's look at the ETH price trend that we are most concerned about. Although at the current stage, EIP-1559 has not fully met expectations in reducing on-chain trading fees, the market's response to ETH's price performance has been positive. According to OKX trading data, as of the time of writing, ETH was last quoted at $3,321, compared to the closing price of $2,756 on August 5 — a gain of 20.5% in just over half a month.
Recent ETH price trend, Source: OKX
Game Fi Rises Prominently, NFT Helps the Ethereum Ecosystem Continue to Grow
The flourishing development of last year's DeFi Summer is still fresh in our memory. This year, the explosion of Game Fi and NFT has once again demonstrated the strong vitality of the Ethereum ecosystem.
According to defipulse data, after the significant downturn in May, the amount of ETH locked in Ethereum-based DeFi protocols dropped from a high of 11.06 million ETH to just over 8.93 million. However, in just three months, this figure rebounded to 9.7 million ETH — only 12.3% away from the previous high.
Amount of ETH locked in Ethereum-based DeFi protocols, Source: defipulse
In the earlier leaderboard of Ethereum network base fee burns over the past half month, we already saw the enormous development potential of OpenSea and Axie Infinity. In fact, to provide players with a faster and more convenient trading experience, the Axie Infinity team built its own Ethereum sidechain called Ronin. Currently, the game's operations can all be carried out on the Ronin chain. However, trading of SLP and AXS still needs to be bridged to the Ethereum mainnet to function properly. Judging from Ronin Bridge's achievement of burning 4,030 ETH in 18 days, Game Fi's popularity has indeed been surging over the past few months.
Not only that, as NFT continues to develop and the Game Fi player base continues to expand alongside ever-innovative gameplay, a mysterious yet alluring metaverse has become an increasingly discussed topic. Looking at the current reality, most Game Fi projects and NFT platforms are still built on Ethereum. From this perspective, it can be said that as long as Ethereum can maintain its advantage in the public chain space, especially if the ETH 2.0 process progresses smoothly and supports Ethereum's full transition from PoW to PoS, then Ethereum is very likely to become an important underlying infrastructure for the metaverse.
Recently, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said in an interview with Bloomberg that blockchain and crypto assets have developed rapidly over the past decade, and their concepts have begun to penetrate many fields including modern finance, technology, and consumer goods. He noted that globally, traditional companies such as Facebook, Twitter, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs are working to incorporate blockchain into their businesses. In addition, Vitalik outlined Ethereum's future plans, stating that he hopes Ethereum will be capable of running a metaverse in the next 5–10 years.
Conclusion
Finally, let's look at the progress of ETH 2.0. According to OK Link statistics, the total amount of ETH staked in ETH 2.0 has reached 7.076 million ETH. It took less than two months to go from 6 million to 7 million, showing signs of entering another acceleration phase. This further fuels our anticipation for other scaling technologies to be implemented on the Ethereum network, such as sharding.
Total ETH staked in ETH 2.0, Source: OK Link
According to the development schedule published by the Ethereum development team, the ETH 2.0 merge is expected to occur in early next year. At that time, PoS will give the Ethereum network greater scalability and reduce user transaction fees and speed up transaction times from the underlying mechanism — undoubtedly further solidifying Ethereum's position.
Disclaimer
This article may contain product-related content that does not apply to your region. This article is solely dedicated to providing general information and does not accept responsibility for any factual errors or omissions contained herein. This article represents only the author's personal views and does not represent OKX's views. This article is not intended to provide any advice, including but not limited to: (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Holdings of digital assets (including stablecoins) involve a high degree of risk and may fluctuate significantly, or even become worthless. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is appropriate for you based on your financial situation. For questions specific to your circumstances, please consult your legal/tax/investment professional. The information contained in this article (including market data and statistics, where applicable) is provided for general reference purposes only. While all reasonable precautions have been taken in the preparation of such data and charts, we assume no responsibility for any factual errors or omissions expressed herein. © 2025 OKX. This article may be reproduced or distributed in its entirety, or excerpts of 100 words or less may be used, provided that such use is for non-commercial purposes. Any reproduction or distribution of the full article must prominently state: "This article is copyrighted © 2025 OKX, used with permission." Permitted excerpts must cite the article name and include attribution, for example: "Article name, [author name (if applicable)], © 2025 OKX." Some content may have been generated or assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Derivative works or other uses of this article are not permitted.
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