Community Poll Review - September 2024

How do you think you did on this quiz? Let's review the questions together below:

1️⃣

How much in daily L1 fees does Arbitrum pay on average post-Dencun?

The "Arbitrum: Batch Submitter" address has been paying less than 5 ETH per day on average on Ethereum since March 15th. Even when gas usage on Arbitrum One spiked to nearly 5T on June 20th during LayerZero's token airdrop, the L1 fees amounted to just 39.82 ETH.

2️⃣

What is a private transaction?

Private transactions are sent directly to validators or block proposers, bypassing public mempools to avoid frontrunning attacks. In contrast to the mempool—a shared pool of pending transactions known to all Ethereum nodes—private transactions aren't broadcasted publicly before being added to the chain. This approach helps traders protect the privacy of their activities and strategies.

3️⃣

What happens when it’s a vanilla builder's turn to propose a block?

When it's a vanilla builder's turn to propose a block:

They include only public mempool transactions.
Due to the rise in private transactions, there may not be enough high-gas transactions in the public mempool to fill the block at least 50%.
Most public transactions are simple transfers or approvals that use minimal gas.
As a result, vanilla-built blocks are often underutilized, typically less than 20% full.
The underutilized block causes the gas price to drop in the next block.
Private transactions must wait to be included in the following block.
If the next block is built by an MEV builder, they will include all pending private transactions from both the current and next blocks, along with public transactions.
This results in a fully utilized block, causing a spike in gas price for the subsequent block.
This cycle leads to base fee volatility.

4️⃣

How is it possible that daily gas usage on September 1st hit an all-time high while gas prices remained low?

Gas prices have remained low despite a steady increase in daily gas usage, primarily due to:

Pre-Dencun: Most L2s routinely committed data as calldata, maintaining consistent demand for block space throughout the day.
Post-Dencun: The introduction of a separate gas fee market for blob posting has alleviated much of the block space demand from L2s.
Base Fee Volatility: The rise in private transaction usage has introduced volatility.
- Vanilla-built blocks are often underutilized, leading to lower gas prices in the following block.
- Some MEV builders, with limited access to private order flow, may not include enough high-gas transactions to fill blocks at least 50%.