Over 1.2 Million Ethereum Transactions Failed in May

Ethereum’s failed transaction count soared by another 1.2 million in May alone. That’s up 200,000 from last month’s figure and over 2% of all failed transactions in its history.

• According to the blockchain data explorer Blockchair, exactly 1,228,131 Ethereum transactions failed between May 1st and May 31st, at the time of writing.
• Transaction failures may occur due to a number of different errors, including if transactions are signed by the wrong sender, or if someone attempts to send negative funds.
• They may also be due to insufficient funds being provided by the sender to pay for transaction fees. High fees have become a long-standing issue for Ethereum, with the cost of gas soaring as high as 474.57 gwei at the start of the month.
• Gas is an abstract unit for measuring the computational cost of various transactions on the Ethereum network. The minimum transaction fee is always 21,000 gas, but the cost of gas in ETH/ gwei terms may vary depending on network demand.
• The 1.2 million failed transactions referenced all had non-zero transaction fees and gas fees attached. Within the first three days of the month, over 83,000 transactions had already failed.
• About 1 million transactions failed on Ethereum in April, as with another million in March. Unfortunately, such failed transactions still don’t return funds for gas fees to the sender.
• 5 of the failed transactions this month cost over 3 ETH, equal to about $6,000 as of writing.
• Vitalik claims that Ethereum transaction costs will significantly decrease after “the merge” – meaning the network’s upgrade to proof of stake.
• Optimism – a layer 2 blockchain designed to make Ethereum transactions much faster and cheaper – launched its governance token on Tuesday.