以太坊Gas Fee節省指南：6大策略助你突破高費困局

As the Ethereum ecosystem rapidly develops, high Gas Fees have become a major challenge for many users conducting on-chain transactions. Each transaction requires paying substantial fees, which significantly eats into the profits for frequent users of the Ethereum network. However, understanding how Gas Fees work, mastering market fluctuation patterns, and effectively utilizing various optimization tools within the ecosystem can help you significantly reduce transaction costs. This article will analyze the causes of Gas Fees in depth and introduce 6 practical strategies for savings.

How Gas Fees Work

Gas is a fundamental component of the Ethereum blockchain, representing the computational resources needed to execute various operations. Simply put, Gas Fee is the amount of ETH that users must pay to perform activities on the Ethereum network.

From a technical perspective, Gas is a measurement unit used to quantify the computational cost of executing specific operations on Ethereum—whether sending ETH, trading DeFi tokens, minting NFTs, or deploying smart contracts. The existence of this mechanism serves a deep purpose: Gas fees prevent spam transactions and act as rewards paid to validators (since Eth2 merge, validators replace miners). In other words, Gas Fee is the price you pay for access to decentralized computing power and a necessary cost to maintain the network’s efficient operation.

Gas is priced in Gwei, where 1 Gwei = 0.000000001 ETH. When you hear statements like “the current Gas is 50,” it means the current Gas price is 50 Gwei, i.e., the price per unit of Gas is 50 Gwei (equivalent to 0.00000005 ETH).

To calculate the specific Gas Fee expenditure, you also need to consider the Gas Limit. The entire Ethereum block has a cap of 15 million Gas, meaning the total Gas used by all transactions in a block cannot exceed this number. For individual transactions, such as a simple ETH transfer, the Gas Limit is 21,000 Gas; more complex smart contract interactions require more Gas. The calculation formula is straightforward:

Gas Fee = Gas Limit × Current Gas Price

For example, if the current Gas price is 50 Gwei, and a simple ETH transfer has a Gas Limit of 21,000, then the fee is: 21,000 × 50 × 0.000000001 ETH = 0.00105 ETH.

Why Are Gas Fees Persistently High?

The core reason for high Gas Fees on Ethereum is block space scarcity. With the explosion of DeFi and NFT ecosystems, demand for Ethereum’s block space has surged, making this scarce resource increasingly expensive.

Gas Fees follow an auction market logic: users set the Gas price they are willing to pay based on transaction urgency, and miners prioritize transactions offering higher fees, packing them into blocks accordingly. This means paying higher Gas Fees can give your transaction priority. When many users compete for limited block space simultaneously, they raise their bids to speed up processing, causing Gas Fees to spiral upward. Currently, Ethereum blocks are nearly full, which is a direct reflection of this phenomenon.

Practical Methods to Cope with High Gas Fees

While short-term Gas Fees are an unavoidable cost, they are not a permanent problem. As Layer 2 scaling solutions and Eth2 upgrades mature, Gas fees are expected to decrease significantly in the long run. During this transitional period, the following strategies can help you effectively lower costs—

1. Optimize Transaction Timing

Ethereum’s Gas Fees exhibit clear intraday and cyclical fluctuations. Depending on regional user activity times, Gas prices can vary greatly within a day.

Historical data shows that Gas prices tend to be higher on weekdays and usually drop noticeably on weekends. Therefore, conducting transactions during weekends is a simple way to quickly reduce costs.

On a daily cycle, the US Eastern Standard Time (EST) from 8 AM to 1 PM is the busiest period for the Ethereum network—when US and European users are working, and Gas fees are at their highest. Conversely, midnight to 4 AM is when the network is least congested—US users are resting, and Asian users have finished work, often resulting in the lowest transaction costs. Performing transactions during these less congested windows can significantly lower your Gas Fee expenditure.

2. Transition to Ethereum Layer 2 Solutions

Although the Ethereum scaling ecosystem is still in its early stages, several mature projects have demonstrated impressive performance. These solutions can offer instant and ultra-cheap transaction experiences.

Two main types of solutions are worth noting: first, Layer 2 solutions, such as projects based on Optimistic Rollups or ZK-Rollups, which inherit Ethereum’s security guarantees while providing high-efficiency independent infrastructure; second, sidechains, which are essentially independent high-performance blockchains designed for interoperability with Ethereum.

Using these solutions, you don’t need to interact frequently with the Ethereum mainnet; most transactions can be conducted on Layer 2 networks or cross-chain environments at affordable costs. For example, you can borrow/lend via Polygon on Aave, trade perpetual contracts on dYdX using StarkEx, earn staking rewards on Synthetix through Optimism, or provide liquidity on Uniswap via Loopring. These Layer 2 ecosystems are quite mature now, and it’s a good time to familiarize yourself with these options.

3. Use Gas Tokens for Arbitrage

Gas Tokens are a clever tool for Gas Fee optimization. You can mint Gas Tokens when Gas prices are low and redeem them when prices are high, effectively refunding ETH to offset transaction costs.

This mechanism works because Ethereum has a storage refund feature—when you delete stored data from the blockchain, Ethereum refunds you. Gas Tokens leverage this mechanism: they lock in a snapshot of storage when Gas is cheap, and unlock it when Gas is expensive to receive refunds.

The most well-known Gas Token project is GasToken.io, offering GST1 and GST2 versions. Usage is simple: navigate to their contract page on EtherScan, call the “Mint” and “Free” functions. When you free Gas Tokens, you receive ETH refunds that can offset Gas costs.

Note that Gas Tokens increase Ethereum’s state bloat and may be phased out in the future, but currently, they remain an effective short-term arbitrage tool.

4. Choose DeFi Applications that Minimize Gas

Many DeFi applications on Ethereum are explicitly designed with Gas optimization in mind. These apps significantly reduce user costs through smart batching and architectural upgrades.

For example, Yearn V2’s vaults and KeeperDAO automatically batch multiple users’ transactions, allowing users to avoid paying Gas per transaction individually, instead sharing costs across many. Similarly, Balancer V2’s upgrade adopts a unified Vault architecture, managing all assets centrally, which reduces Gas fees for transactions on the platform. Choosing such applications that explicitly optimize for Gas efficiency is often the most hassle-free way to save.

5. Use Strategy Simulation for Pre-Transaction Testing

DeFi Saver’s Recipe Creator and Simulation Mode provide powerful pre-transaction testing tools. You can design and simulate your entire transaction flow beforehand, preview the estimated costs without paying any Gas, and then optimize accordingly.

This process works by: using the Recipe Creator to arrange any combination of Ethereum activities you plan to execute, then launching Simulation Mode for a full test. The entire process incurs no Gas costs. While this isn’t a direct Gas-saving method, it helps you accurately assess and adjust costs before executing real transactions.

6. Find Projects Offering Gas Refunds

Some projects within the Ethereum ecosystem recognize users’ Gas cost burdens and proactively offer refund programs. Balancer and Furucombo are prominent examples.

Balancer has launched incentive programs where users trading specific pairs on the platform can earn BAL governance tokens as partial Gas fee compensation. Furucombo, a DeFi aggregator, runs a COMBO token Gas reimbursement program. These initiatives not only provide tangible cost savings but also boost platform activity. As more protocols adopt similar models, users’ Gas burdens will further ease.

Future Outlook and Current Strategies

High Gas Fees are not a permanent ailment of the Ethereum ecosystem. With the maturation of Layer 2 scaling solutions and the Eth2 upgrade, Gas fees are expected to drop significantly within the next year.

However, during this transitional period, we must learn to coexist with high Gas Fees. Before executing your next Ethereum transaction, don’t rush to confirm—check network times, evaluate if the same transaction can be done via Layer 2, consider batching tools or refund projects. These seemingly simple steps can often save you considerable costs and make each transaction more efficient and economical.