High transaction fees are not unique in the world of cryptocurrency. While Bitcoin users suffer from this issue on a regular basis, Ethereum’s gas prices are going up as well. However, one user looking to participate in an ICO sent an Ether transaction with an 8 ETH fee. That means he or she paid US$1,500 in fees for some unknown reason. This is a rather unique incident, yet it raises a lot of questions.
Paying US$1,500 in Fees is Ridiculous
When it comes to partaking in Ethereum-based ICOs, time is of the essence. A lot of these crowdsales end in mere minutes, which means users have to ensure their transactions get confirmed as soon as possible. One way of doing that is by paying a higher transaction fee. However, paying a fee of 8 ETH seems to be rather steep to participate in an ICO.
That is exactly what happened to one user looking to be a part of the BAT ICO. With a transaction cost of 8 Ether, this user was desperate to get their hands on ICO tokens. It appears the actual gas price during that transaction was a lot higher compared to the average network cost. This pushed the fee up by quite a margin, as it would have cost only US$1.5 worth of ETH to send this transaction under normal circumstances. Paying 1,000 times that amount seems overkill.
It is only normal ICO buyers set their gas limit higher than normal. However, that should not necessarily cause the gas price itself to go up exponentially. This can be circumvented by manually setting gas prices through some form of script, though. It is evident this user used some sort of “tool” to ensure he or she could be part of the ICO. Unfortunately, that plan backfired, as it cost US$1,500 in transaction fees.
One thing to take into account is how a higher transaction fee will result in miners including the transfer in a block much sooner. This is true for any cryptocurrency network. During an ICO, transactions need to be confirmed faster. A slightly higher price could do the trick. Taking such extreme measures is rather unusual, though. It is a rather unique event, to say the least. However, it is also an example of how ICOs can negatively affect the network fees for Ethereum.
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