Almost 1M Ether would have been burnt in past year if fee proposal approved

The controversial Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559 would have burnt 970,000 Ether - with a total value of $360 million - in the last year, if it had been implemented.

EIP-1559 seeks to reduce transaction fees by introducing flat fees alongside a burn mechanism,.

Although the idea of burning fees has long been considered, even prior to Ethereum's genesis block in 2015, EIP-1559 was the first serious proposal to suggest integrating the concept into Ethereum's code.

The current proposal, first suggested way back in 2018 by Vitalik Buterin, would drastically change how transaction fees are calculated.

This fee is burnt and the incentive for miners comes from users adding a 'tip' on top of the base fee.

Ultimately, the proposal has four design goals - predictable fees, consistent blocksize, increased security, and preventing economic abstraction.

A week ago Messari stated that Ethereum fees have surpassed Bitcoin fees for a record breaking two months.

Transaction fee revenue is now nearing half as high as block reward revenue.

Fee market reform fixes this; another reason why that EIP is important.

Within one month of Buterin's Tweet, total transaction fees for Ethereum passed that of Bitcoin before taking a steep ascent to all-time highs.