The Crypto Fees Index answers one question: what does it cost to use crypto right now? It is a 0–100 reading derived from the live network fee of a simple transfer across the chains we measure, refreshed every 30 minutes. This page documents exactly how — so you can audit, reproduce, or criticize it.
What the numbers mean
- "Send $100" — the network fee, in USD, of a simple native transfer on that chain. The amount moved doesn't change the fee; the label exists for relatability.
- "Swap $100" — the network fee of a typical DEX swap (~150,000 gas on EVM chains). Venue/LP fees are NOT included — this is the chain's cut, not the exchange's.
- The index (0–100) — the log-scale position of the cross-chain median send cost between $0.0005 (reads ≈0) and $20 (reads ≈100). Log scale because fees are log-distributed: the difference between $0.001 and $0.01 matters as much as between $1 and $10.
Per-chain sources and formulas
| Chain | Source | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | mempool.space fees/recommended (half-hour target) | sat/vB × 140 vB × BTC/USD |
| Ethereum | public RPC eth_gasPrice | gas price × 21,000 × ETH/USD |
| Base, Arbitrum, Optimism | public RPC eth_gasPrice | gas price × 21,000 × ETH/USD |
| Solana | getRecentPrioritizationFees RPC | 5,000 lamports base + median priority fee × 200k CU |
| TON | documented fee model, static estimate (marked ~) | fixed native amount × spot price |
| Tron | documented resource model, static estimate (marked ~) | fixed native amount × spot price |
| USD conversion | CoinGecko public API | spot prices at collection time |
Known limitations (read before citing precision)
- L2 data fees are ignored. Post-4844 the L1 data component of rollup fees is small, but it is not zero. This slightly understates L2 costs.
- TON and Tron are estimates, not live readings — the upper end of what a simple
native transfer costs, priced at spot, so they read high rather than typical. Tron's
is what an account with no free bandwidth pays; most Tron transfers fall inside the
daily free quota and cost nothing. Both are flagged with
~everywhere and carry the date they were last checked against the chain (reviewedOnin the API). The collector refuses to run if either drifts outside its documented range. - One reading per interval. Fees spike within minutes during congestion; a 30-minute cadence smooths over the sharpest peaks.
- Swap gas is an approximation. Real swaps range roughly 100k–300k gas depending on route; we use 150k as a representative middle.
When any of these materially changes, the version number above changes with it.
Using this data
Everything on /fees and in the free API may be quoted, screenshotted, and embedded with attribution to ChainCensus (chaincensus.com/fees). Charts carry their own source line, so a screenshot self-attributes. For press inquiries see Press.