Ethereum gas prices have become the bane of every cryptobods life. So eyewateringly high that even cryptogods like @publish0x (subtle bit of ass-licking) have had to take drastic measures.
Imps like me have had quite a few "OMFG, how much? You have got to be f%&king jessing me. You want me to bend over? Really really? Do ya?" moments and you end up putting ethgasstation or etherscan gastracker on a tab in your browser. Come the time that the gas price looks relatively reasonable or more likely "as good as it is going to get that day" you then set the gas price in metamask. Precisely 10 seconds later Ethgasstation tells you that the price has gone up by 400 times and your "what should have been 3 minute transaction" is now not going to be processed til mid-November 2023.
Things like that get a bit frustrating (mild understatement) and occur because the gas prices quoted are based on historical data. As in "it cost this much before so it will possibly be around the same price next time .....fingers-crossed hehehe". Fingers crossed being not my preferred method of doing things as I am generally cursed. For example I recently won $150 in a trading competition and when they finally got in touch (17 days of hassling) and asked me what coin I would like it in - "anything here are my public keys" - 5 further days later they sent me 0.43 USDC - yes you got it 43?. I assumed (uh-huh) that they had made a mistake and intended to send 0.43 Ether (pursed lips) so I got in touch and bingo got my cash sent directly to KUCOIN .........which was hacked precisely 17minutes after it arrived. I kid you not...... Here is a screenshot.
Anyhow back to the point of this article. One of the big Ethereum miners, Sparkpool, have come up with a potential solution. Instead of relying on historical data why not try to PREDICT the gas price. The miner has lots of transactions in its mempool (waiting room) waiting to be processed. Each gas price determining where they are in the queue and how long it should take to be processed thus it seems reasonable that you should be able to use this to predict the future.
So we have it Gas Now - the better way to determine the gas price :)
They also provide you with an api if you want to have a live feed into an app or onto a webpage ...cough @Publish0x wouldn't that be useful? :) Some of the chinese wallets such as Math have already (super quick work) incorporated it.
Here's hoping this is the end of big waits for Ether transactions and a big thankyou to Sparkpool.
