Arbitrum One batches users' transactions and submits them to Ethereum, paying a share of the transaction fees to Ethereum validators (expense).

Arbitrum One is an L2 smart contract platform for decentralized applications on Ethereum. Arbitrum was founded by Offchain Labs and launched in 2021.

ARB tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently run the only sequencer and take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue). Arbitrum’s investors include Polychain, Alameda Research, Coinbase Ventures, etc.

github

twitter

discord

etherscan

website

Blockchains (L2)

Arbitrum One

# Arbitrum One Median transaction fee Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Arbitrum transaction fee median measures the middle value of daily transaction fees paid by users on the Arbitrum Layer 2 network. This metric provides insight into typical transaction costs and network usage patterns by calculating the 50th percentile of all transaction fees each day. The calculation captures Arbitrum's L2 gas fee structure and converts amounts to USD for standardized reporting.

## 2. Data sources

- **Arbitrum transaction records**: Raw blockchain transaction data including gas prices, gas usage amounts, transaction hashes, and block timestamps from the Arbitrum network
- **End-of-day token price feeds**: WETH price data used for USD conversion since Arbitrum transaction fees are paid in ETH
- **Token metadata**: WETH contract information (`0x82af49447d8a07e3bd95bd0d56f35241523fbab1`) for proper token identification and decimal handling

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Transaction data extraction and fee calculation
- **Purpose**: Extract raw Arbitrum transaction data and calculate individual L2 gas fees
- **Logic**: Pull all Arbitrum blockchain transactions including gas price (effective gas price from receipts) and gas used amounts. Calculate the L2 gas fee for each transaction by multiplying the `gas_used_amount` by the `gas_price` and dividing by 1e18 to convert from wei to ETH denomination. Associate each transaction with the WETH token address since fees are paid in ETH.
- **Key fields**: `gas_price` (effective gas price), `gas_used_amount` (gas consumed), `l2_gas_fee_amount` (calculated fee in ETH), `block_timestamp` (transaction timing)

### Component B: Daily median aggregation  
- **Purpose**: Calculate the median transaction fee for each day across all Arbitrum transactions
- **Logic**: Group all transactions by day using timestamp truncation to daily boundaries. For each day, calculate the median fee amount using approximate quantiles at the 50th percentile across all transaction fee amounts. Handle zero fee amounts by coalescing null values to zero before median calculation.
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` (daily boundary), `transaction_fee_median` (50th percentile fee amount)

### Component C: USD conversion and finalization
- **Purpose**: Convert ETH-denominated median fees to USD and standardize the metric output
- **Logic**: Apply USD conversion using end-of-day WETH price feeds to convert the median fee amounts from ETH to USD. The conversion uses the convert_to_usd macro without decimal correction since ETH amounts are already properly scaled. Apply the finalize_metric macro to standardize the output format and implement a fill_zeros strategy for any missing days.
- **Key fields**: `transaction_fee_median` (USD-converted median fee), standardized timestamp and chain identification fields

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The calculation flows sequentially from raw transaction extraction through daily median calculation to USD conversion, with each component building on the previous step's output
- **Currency conversion**: ETH-denominated fees are converted to USD using end-of-day WETH price feeds, maintaining the median calculation's integrity through the conversion process  
- **Time aggregation**: Daily boundaries are established through timestamp truncation, ensuring consistent 24-hour periods for median calculations regardless of transaction timing
- **Final calculation**: The final metric represents the USD value of the median transaction fee paid by users on Arbitrum each day, calculated as the 50th percentile of all daily transaction fees converted to USD using end-of-day exchange rates

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Arbitrum OneARB

Median transaction fee

Median transaction fee

Competitive landscape