Phew... what a nerve-racking time that last week was for Ethereum followers! One of the biggest events and technical achievements seemed to go off without a hitch... and we now have the "panda" chain! Well, in a less funny way... we have the Merged Ethereum, with the transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake seemingly going off without too much drama! No drama is always a great thing! Of course, there is still time for interesting things to happen on the new Ethereum... but for the moment, all the drama is on the slightly scammy Proof of Work forks that have sprung up that are likely to end up trapping the unwary... At the moment, it does look like that a chunk of miner hash went to the more established Ethereum Classic (ETC) and RavenCoin (RVN). Probably better bets if you are interested in Proof of Work than the ghost chains that come about through the recent forkings. As usual, it is interesting to see who the big backers of ETHW and ETF are...

Anyway, part of the promise of the Merge was that Ethereum would start to transition to a much lower issuance balance. The rate of inflation and burn would mean that the total inflation of ETH was going to drop quite significantly, and at certain levels of gas fees it would actually be deflationary (negative). The rough estimate for the negative inflation is around 15 gwei... so, we were there for a few moments after the Merge, but since then, gas fees have plummeted down to the 2-5 gwei range!

That does mean that we are still undergoing total inflation still, but it is significantly lower than the under the Proof of Work regime. However, stinking low gas fees for transactions does mean that it is high time to get some backlogged non-time critical transactions queued up! Actually, it isn't such a bad time to do time critical ones either! The mainnet seems stable enough, so I don't have to much in the way of worries about doing transactions now.

Man... it has been seriously years and years since I have seen these numbers on eth gas fees! I mean, we had periods much lower gas fees in the previous year.. and I was generally chuffed to see things in the range of 20-40 gwei... and then more recently, I had rushed to get things done at around the 10 gwei level. But, this is pretty insane! 2 gwei... of course, I was a touch greedy and had set mine at 2 gwei... perhaps I should have set it a little bit higher at a very luxurious 4 gwei! On the other hand... there is nothing really critical in these transactions... so, maybe I will just leave it for a day or two to see if they get through!

... but I guess if I'm not lucky, the gas fees could rocket back up again to something like 10-20 gwei. Hpoefully not.. I hate these little gambles on the gas fees... I did a few time critical ones at the suggested price, but now I'm wondering if it was a wise idea to set the other ones so low. Sigh... it has only been an hour since I broadcast them, so I should give it some time. This is the worst part of the entire blockchain experience, the gas auctions and second-guessing yourself!

I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
Steem
Publish0x

Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
GMX.io: Decentralised perpetual futures trading on Arbitrum!
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
FTX: Regulated US-based exchange with some pretty interesting and useful discounts on trading and withdrawal fees for FTT holders. Decent fiat on-ramp as well!
MXC: Listings of lots of interesting tokens that are usually only available on DEXs. Avoid high gas prices!
Huobi: One of the largest exchanges in the world, some very interesting listings and early access sales through Primelist.
Gate.io: If you are after some of the weirdest and strangest tokens, this is one of the easiest off-chain places to get them!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
Poloniex: One of the older regulated exchanges that has come into new ownership. I used to use it quite a lot, but have since stopped.
Bitfinex: Ahhh... another oldie, but a goodie exchange. Most noted for the close affiliation with USDT and the Basic "no-KYC" tier!