London Hardfork Upgrade: Here’s How Many Ether Has Been Burnt

The long awaited EIP 1559 upgrade, also known as the London hardfork has official gone live today. This upgrade has a lot of significance for the Ethereum blockchain, and may spell a move to address the aching challenge of high gas fees. Per an earlier Coingape report, the potentials of the London Hardfork which went live on blocks 12,965,000 to boost price was also examined.

The EIP 1559 upgrade introduces about 5 new major changes to the Ethereum blockchain. One of the most important of these improvements, which borders on addressing the gas fee bidding war has been cited as a panacea to prevent massive fee hike that can continue to hurt the usability of the network. Unlike what was obtainable before, the Ethereum network now sets a base gas fee that is applicable to all users.

One of the other changes is the burning of the gas fee paid by network users. This upgrade was designed to help counterbalance the inflationary rate of the Ether coin, and since the EIP 1559 upgrade went live, as many as 1,378.1 ETH has been burned at the time of writing, according to data from EtherChain.

The rate of burn of Ethereum per Ether Chain is dynamic, and as shown above, it was pegged at 8.64 ETH/Min. Per the current value of Ethereum which was changing hands at $2,791.17 according to CoinMarketCap, the total burnt Ether is valued at approximately $3.84 million.

Implications of the EIP 1559 Upgrade and the Burning Event

The concept of token burning is becoming increasingly popular amongst various crypto projects today. It is a model designed to help reduce the supply of the underlying asset in circulation. In the case of Ethereum, the token burning is new, and may serve as a focal selling point to both institutional and retail investors alike.

The EIP 1559 upgrade will serve as a precursor for a more permanent and stable Ethereum blockchain, the launch of the Ethereum 2.0. This next network will work using the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism and has been tagged as a more permanent solution to the gas fee and scalability issues.

Generally, while the gas wars may be over, the new EIP 1559 protocol has a caveat in which users are free to tip miners. If unchecked, this may still cause some transactions to be prioritized over others, making the base fee model ineffective. Ethereum 2.0 will ultimately keep this in check.

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