Is there a trick you can apply to your everyday bills, where you’d have full access to your usual utilities but pay less than usual? It sounds so good and financially relieving. It would be good to have such a cheat code for our utility bills. However, the good news is that in crypto, you can pay less gas fee for your usual transaction, yes! This is the best time to trade Ethereum, as we know the gas fee is usually high. How do we go about this though? Follow this article till the end and you will be glad you did!

Before delving deeper, someone new to crypto trading may be wondering what a gas fee is. Gas fees can be likened to payment for fuel to used to power your car. Don’t get it mixed up. Ethereum network or any other DApp built around it is dependent on gas fees to move. Simply put, gas fees are payments made in transactions to process them.

Various factors influence the amount to be paid for gas fees during a transaction. It can be network traffic, or gas price, the complexity of the contract, or even the gas limit, exchange rates, or network upgrades. However, in the same way, there are several factors influencing the rate of gas fees, there are also certain tactics that can help a crypto trader spend less on gas fees, these tactics will be revealed in this article.

How To Pay the Lowest Gas Fee

As a crypto trader, it's essential to monitor trends and patterns in the market. First, identify the key determinants of the high gas fee, then you can counteract to favor your transactions. In comparison to other cryptocurrencies, it is not news that Ethereum transactions have a high gas fee rate. Hence a knowledge of how gas fees work coupled with the strategies involved in paying less gas fees opens the way to the best time for completing Ethereum transactions.

Essentially the price of gas fees is majorly dependent on the capacity of the network, as well as demand and supply at the time of the transaction. That is, once the traffic is high, in the network, then there’s a high chance of having a high gas fee.

How then, do you pay the lowest gas fees, let’s look at a few tips to guide you as a crypto trader to spend less on gas fees.

Time your transactions: We have established that time is one of the factors that affect the rate of gas fees. This happens because time can directly affect network congestion. When the rate of activity is high, then the network traffic is also high. Hence, it is important to time your transactions to a period when activities are less in the blockchain network. Research indicates that Saturdays and Sundays are days that ETH gas fees are usually the lowest. In addition, the best times to transact are between 1 AM - 3 AM, 5 AM - 8 AM, and 9 PM - 11 PM UTC. Note that the lesser the activity, the lower the network congestion and in turn the gas fee.
Edit your wallet settings: One of the amazing benefits of some crypto wallets is the ability for the user to edit the gas fee option. If you are using a wallet that supports this model, switch on the lower gas fee. Although, this may lead to a reduced transaction speed, but better to spend less.
The use of Ethereum Layer 2s: In comparison to the main net, applying this solution in transactions can lead to the reduction of gas fees because L2s usually charge lesser gas fees.
The use of specially built tools - GasHawk.io: There are free tools like gashawk.io that help automatically execute the transaction once the gas fee is low. The use of these tools in Ethereum transactions leads to a reduced gas fee and smoother Ethereum transactions.

Conclusion

As much as we may like to walk around gas fees or completely eradicate them, the place of these fees can not be replaced. Gas fees serve as a means of payment to network securities, that is, there are people called validators who stand to protect and secure the Ethereum network, and the reward for their service is the gas fee. Without payments, there would be no securities for the networks and it makes them vulnerable to risks. Therefore, embrace the gas fee, but be smart about the rate by monitoring the key determinants and strategically working with them to favor your transactions.