Ethereum Creator Vitalik Buterin Proposes Wallet Fee to Fund Developers

The creator of the world's second largest blockchain proposed today on Twitter a new norm for the ecosystem – a flat wallet fee of 1 gwei.

AccessTimeIconMar 8, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. UTC
Updated Sep 13, 2021 at 8:58 a.m. UTC
10 Years of Decentralizing the Future
May 29-31, 2024 - Austin, TexasThe biggest and most established global hub for everything crypto, blockchain and Web3.Register Now

Vitalik Buterin, the creator of the ethereum blockchain project, has proposed increasing user fees on the network for the purposes of supporting developers with sustainable funding.

“I propose we consider supporting a community norm that client [and] wallet [developers] can [and] should charge a 1 gwei/gas fee for [transactions] sent through their wallet,” tweeted Buterin Friday.

Gas fees denominated in gwei are payments made by the user to compensate for the computational energy required to process and validate transactions on the ethereum blockchain.

Suggesting that a flat, “one-off” payment of 1 gwei ($0.01 is about 73,000 gwei) for transactions sent to ethereum wallets could collectively raise up to $2 million in a year, Buterin wrote:

“At the cost of only increasing average user gas costs by [roughly] 7 percent, it would raise up to [$2 million per year] in sustainable, non-institutionally biased, market-based funding for client/wallet developers. For reference, that would cover all [Ethereum Foundation] grants to date … with room to spare.”

Stressing that he wanted to encourage this fee as a norm – not a mandate – in the ethereum ecosystem, Buterin explained there’s already a high degree of trust between users and their ethereum wallets given that “a bad [wallet] could steal all your money.”

Community responses thus far to Buterin’s proposal have been mixed, with one user pointing out that bitcoin wallet MultiBit had tried and failed to implement such a fee.

“Users were not willing to pay for something that was previously free. No one would upgrade,” tweeted Ken Hodler. “Eventually, the fee was removed. Without a good way to pay for support and engineering, development on the wallet stopped.”

CORRECTION: A quote by Vitalik Buterin has been removed from this article after admission its statements were aboutEthereum Improvement Proposal 1559, not the wallet fee proposal made on Twitter.

Ethereum logo via CoinDesk Archives

Disclosure

Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information has been updated.

CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by Block.one; both companies have interests in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.


Learn more about Consensus 2024, CoinDesk's longest-running and most influential event that brings together all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3. Head to consensus.coindesk.com to register and buy your pass now.