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

Base is an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) offering a secure, low-cost, builder-friendly way for anyone, anywhere, to build onchain.

Coinbase team owns and governs the protocol. Coinbase is a public company and its investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Vanguard Group, ARK Investment Management, etc.

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Base

# Base Median transaction fee Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Base transaction fee median metric measures the daily median transaction fee paid by users on the Base blockchain, expressed in USD. This metric provides insight into the typical cost of transacting on Base, which is an Optimistic rollup that inherits security from Ethereum while offering lower fees. The calculation accounts for both Layer 2 (L2) execution fees and Layer 1 (L1) data availability fees, which is characteristic of Optimistic rollup fee structures.

## 2. Data sources

- **Base blockchain transaction records**: Complete transaction data from the Base network including gas usage metrics, gas prices, and Layer 1 fee components
- **End-of-day WETH price feeds**: Token price data from Ethereum mainnet for WETH (Wrapped Ethereum) contract `0xc02aaa39b223fe8d0a0e5c4f27ead9083c756cc2`, used to convert ETH-denominated fees to USD
- **Token metadata**: Metadata for WETH token including decimal precision information for accurate currency conversion

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Raw transaction fee calculation
- **Purpose**: Calculate the total fee paid for each Base transaction by combining L2 execution costs and L1 data availability costs
- **Logic**: Extract all Base blockchain transactions and compute the total fee for each transaction. For each transaction, calculate the L2 execution fee as `gas_used` multiplied by `gas_price`, then add the L1 data availability fee calculated as `l1_gas_used` multiplied by `l1_gas_price` multiplied by `l1_fee_scalar`. Both fee components are converted from wei to ETH by dividing by 1e18. Missing or null values are treated as zero using coalesce functions.
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` for timing, `gas_used` for L2 execution gas consumption, `gas_price` for L2 gas price, `l1_gas_used` for L1 data gas consumption, `l1_gas_price` for L1 gas price, and `l1_fee_scalar` for L1 fee scaling factor

### Component B: Daily median aggregation
- **Purpose**: Calculate the daily median transaction fee across all Base transactions
- **Logic**: Group all transactions by calendar day using timestamp truncation to day boundaries. For each day, calculate the median fee amount using the `APPROX_QUANTILES` function with 100 quantiles and select the 50th percentile (median value). This provides the typical transaction fee paid by users on each day, filtering out outliers from both very cheap and very expensive transactions.
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` truncated to daily boundaries and `transaction_fee_median` as the calculated 50th percentile fee amount

### Component C: Currency conversion and formatting
- **Purpose**: Convert the ETH-denominated median fees to USD and format for final metric output
- **Logic**: Join the daily median fee data with end-of-day WETH price feeds from Ethereum mainnet. The calculation uses WETH prices because Base transactions are paid in ETH. Multiply the median fee amounts by the corresponding daily WETH prices to get USD values. Apply the `convert_to_usd_and_correct_decimals` macro without decimal correction since fees are already properly scaled, but with USD conversion enabled.
- **Key fields**: `transaction_fee_median` converted to USD values using WETH price data

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The components flow sequentially - raw transaction fees are calculated first, then aggregated to daily medians, then converted to USD
- **Currency conversion**: USD conversion uses end-of-day WETH prices from Ethereum mainnet, as Base uses ETH as its native gas token
- **Time aggregation**: Data is aggregated to daily boundaries using timestamp truncation, with each day represented by a single median fee value
- **Final calculation**: The final metric value represents the median transaction fee in USD that users paid on Base for each calendar day, accounting for both L2 execution costs and L1 data availability costs that are characteristic of Optimistic rollup architectures

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

Base

Median transaction fee

Median transaction fee

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