Once upon a time in advance of battle men would line up and await instruction to ‘go over the top’, up and out of the trenches, to advance on the enemy in order to capture land/assets/people. To the victor went the spoils of war.
In the absence of this mode of warfare in the 21st century, men and women now await “minting o’clock” to smash a button and push through a transaction in order to secure a scarce asset before others around the world can do so.
This is not just a flippant analogy.
Though there is no life on the line (thankfully), the ire, disappointment, and pain of not securing a prized NFT is real. Just feel the atmosphere in a discord pre, during, and post-mint: it can be electric, boisterous, excited, then urgent, panicked, or euphoric, then ecstatic or vicious and furious. Too much value is on the line.
How can you not be urgent, panicked, vicious and furious in the process of buying a highly prized NFT which has more demand than supply?
By reading this Paper to understand how transactions work on Ethereum and how to make your transactions faster.
A huge shout out to @thedigitalvee who wrote the thread which I reference throughout this Paper. I learned all of this information from Vee and I am hopeful that the same thread with my additional commentary can be helpful to you.
NB. There are NO guarantees when trying to get transactions through! It can be the Wild West sometimes and you really have to stay alive to the gas prices as they change - so stay awake and good luck!
1. What is a transaction fee?
When you buy an NFT on Ethereum you have to pay a transaction fee before the purchase can be approved.
This transaction fee is a combination of (i) a base fee - set by the network itself; and (ii) a priority fee - set by you to incentivise miners to validate your transaction.
Total transaction fee = base fee + priority fee
2. How can I edit my preferences for the base fee and priority fee to be more successful at mint?
Turn on advanced gas controls in MetaMask.
3. What do I need to do once I click on ‘Mint’ and MetaMask opens?
You will see the pop-up below. You have to click ‘EDIT’ to change the gas preferences, because if you stick to the suggested gas fee and everyone else increases their gas fee drastically, other people’s transactions will be prioritised over yours.
4. What are my options for editing the maximum fee and priority fee?
NB. Never amend the GAS LIMIT.
A reminder:
Priority fee = what we offer miners to prioritise our transaction
Maximum fee = absolute total we are willing to pay for gas
There are 3 ways to go about this:
(i) Increase maximum fee only
This is not very helpful because it allows for an increase in the base fee but the miner tip is capped.
(ii) Increase priority fee only
Miners are more incentivised here, but if the base fee increases to a point where base fee + priority fee = more than maximum fee - then the priority fee will be reduced to maintain the absolute limit (meaning your priority fee won’t actually be as high as you’d like it to be).
(iii) Increase both maximum fee and priority fee
This method ensures that you have accounted for both miner incentives and a base fee increase.
5. How much do I need to increase the maximum fee and the priority fee?
(i) An appropriate path
Blocknative suggest that “for predictable transaction settlement it is currently considered best practice to set a maximum fee that anticipates [an] increase in the base fee”. (If lots of people are using the network at the exact same time as you, demand surges so the base fee will rise.)
Their gas estimator uses this simple heuristic: maximum fee = (2*base fee) + priority fee
Blocknative gas estimator: following the guideline fees in the “99% probability” is likely (but not guaranteed) to be successful
As such, if you double the current base fee to calculate a maximum fee it should ensure that your transaction will remain marketable for six consecutive blocks. (Read this article in full to understand why this is important.)
(ii) An aggressive path
Set a high maximum fee and priority fee as the same as the maximum fee.
This means that once the base fee is deducted from the maximum fee, everything remaining will go to the miner to incentivise them to prioritise your transaction.
NB. This is a very aggressive path and you are likely going to pay more than ‘necessary’ to secure your NFT. See the example below.
6. How to speed up transactions
If your transaction does not go through after a few seconds (or longer), you can follow the below steps to increase the transaction fees even more should you wish.
You should keep an eye on Blocknative gas estimator when you do this so you get a sense of how busy the network has become.
If still no success, you can go again one more time.
Hopefully you’ve been successful at some point in this process!
Closing thoughts
This has brought me success. I hope it brings you the same. But do be careful. It is by no means straightforward and you have to be very alive in the process.
I would recommend reading this a few times (including the linked articles which are VERY important for background), and really coming to terms with what fees you are playing with and how they operate.
All the best
B
Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered as investment advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
I hold some of the NFTs mentioned in these newsletters.