Ethereum Network and Staking
Fees, issuance and the staking yield · source: ultrasound.money
Base fee over time
Average over 24 h: 0.08 gwei. The base fee is the part of the fee that gets burned — neither the validator nor anyone else receives it. It rises as blocks fill up and falls to fractions of a gwei in quiet hours. On top of it users add a tip for the validator, so the fee actually paid is always somewhat higher.
ETH supply since the Merge
Issuance currently exceeds burning, so the ETH supply grows slowly. Even so, that is an order of magnitude less than the network would issue under mining. Since EIP-1559 in August 2021, 4,637,263 ETH has been burned.
How much ETH is staked
The staking yield has three parts: issuance of new ETH, tips from users and MEV — what a validator earns from ordering transactions in a block. Issuance is steady and falls as validators are added; tips and MEV move with network activity. The yield shown is before any staking provider's cut and ignores the risk of validator downtime.
data as of 8/18/2026, 10:55:51 AM · Related: Ethereum price · ETH/BTC ratio · Ethereum ETF flows
How Ethereum handles fees and issuance
Since August 2021 (EIP-1559) an Ethereum fee has two parts. The base fee is the mandatory minimum, set by the protocol from how full blocks are, and it is burned for good once paid. The tip is optional and goes to the validator for including the transaction. As blocks fill, the base fee climbs geometrically — which is why fees in a rush do not rise by percent but by multiples.
Since the move to proof of stake (the Merge, September 2022) Ethereum issues new ETH only to validators, and far less of it than mining did. When burned ETH exceeds newly issued ETH, total supply falls — hence the “ultrasound money” nickname. Since most activity moved to rollups the base fee has collapsed and the network is usually mildly inflationary.
Staked ETH is locked in validators and cannot be sold from one minute to the next — withdrawals queue. The more ETH is staked, the lower the yield per validator, because the same issuance is split among more people.
Figures from the public ultrasound.money API. This is not investment advice.