Yesterday I wrote an article, writing about my big expectations for the London hard-fork and its impact on the gas fees. I guess I didn't understand the fork completely, because the gas fees didn't go down in the aftermath of the fork, but rather the opposite.
Since then I have read some more about it, and I truly understand that I misunderstood it in part. The following quote comes from an article written by MetaMask about EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal) 1559 about the prices:
"Will EIP-1559 make gas cheaper? No, this is not the intent of the EIP. As a side effect of a more predictable base fee, EIP-1559 may lead to some reduction in gas prices if we assume that fee predictability means users will overpay for gas less frequently. With EIP-1559, the base fee will increase and decrease by 12.5% after blocks are more than 50% full. For example, if a block is 100% full the base fee increases by 12.5%; if it is 50% full the base fee will be the same; if it is 0% full the base fee would decrease by 12.5%. The ongoing movement of applications to rollups and Layer 2s will greatly reduce fees."
(Source: https://metamask.io/1559)
I guess the text you just read explains the fork and how it will affect the gas fees in the coming months until Ethereum 2.0.
In other words, it will not necessarily make it cheaper, but based on the number of transactions and how many can be found in a block, the prices will go either up and down.
One big difference... Ethereum worth $10,000 per minute
There is one big difference, however. As of now, most of the Ethereum paid in gas fees is burned, which meaning that according to an article I read, that Ethereum worth $10,000 per minute. That is quite a lot, isn't it? In other words, Ethereum has started to decrease in availability, something that should come as a big plus and bonus to everyone who is staking and holding Ethereum long-term!
In other words, no cheap gas-fees (yet), but we are heading in the right direction!