Solana Transaction Fees: Cost & How They Work

This guide focuses on how Solana transaction fees work, including base fees, compute units, priority fees, and fee distribution.

This article is for informational and educational purposes only. The fee data, SOL price equivalents, and network statistics cited here are subject to change and may not reflect current conditions at the time of reading. This content does not constitute financial, investment, or trading advice. Always verify current fee data using Solana Explorer or Solscan before transacting.

Key Takeaways

• Solana's base transaction fee is 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature, approximately $0.00025 at current SOL prices
• Fees have two components: a fixed base fee and an optional priority fee
• Priority fees are priced in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU) and speed up transaction processing during congestion
• 50% of every base fee is permanently burned from the SOL supply; 50% goes to the block-producing validator
• Priority fees are not burned; 100% goes to the validator who processes the block

A Solana transaction fee is the cost paid in SOL (Solana's native cryptocurrency) to process a transaction on the Solana blockchain. The base fee is 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature, approximately $0.00025 at current SOL prices (source: CoinGecko, verify at publication).

Current Fee Data

Solana is a Layer 1 blockchain, a base-layer distributed network of computers (validators) that record and verify transactions directly on its own chain. Solana Labs, co-founded by Anatoly Yakovenko (who designed the Proof of History mechanism at the core of Solana's architecture), launched its Mainnet Beta in March 2020.

Solana does not use the term "gas fee." That terminology is Ethereum-specific. Solana calls these costs transaction fees, and the underlying mechanics differ structurally, as the comparison section covers in detail.

What Is a Solana Transaction Fee? Definition and Key Concepts

A Solana transaction fee has two components: a fixed base fee that applies to every transaction, and an optional priority fee that users add to speed up processing during periods of high network demand. Both components are denominated in lamports, Solana's smallest currency unit. Fees are deducted automatically from the SOL balance in your wallet when a transaction is submitted.

What Is a Lamport? Solana's Unit of Fee Measurement

A lamport is the smallest denomination of SOL, Solana's native cryptocurrency. One SOL equals 1,000,000,000 (one billion) lamports. The lamport is named after computer scientist Leslie Lamport, known for his foundational work in distributed systems. The relationship is analogous to cents and dollars, except there are one billion lamports in one SOL, not one hundred cents. (Source: docs.solana.com/terminology#lamport)

All lamport figures in this article include their SOL and USD equivalents to keep the numbers grounded in practical terms.

Does Solana Have Gas Fees?

No. Solana does not use the term "gas fee." That terminology is specific to Ethereum's fee model, where users pay in "gas" units priced in gwei. On Solana, the equivalent costs are called transaction fees, and the underlying mechanics work differently.

Solana transaction fees and Ethereum gas fees serve the same purpose: they compensate the network for processing a transaction. The fee structure, denomination units, and market dynamics are distinct. The full comparison appears in the Solana vs. Ethereum vs. Bitcoin section below.

How Solana Transaction Fees Are Structured: Base Fee, Priority Fee, and Compute Units

Solana's total transaction fee equals the base fee (5,000 lamports times the number of signatures) plus any optional priority fee (compute unit price times compute units consumed).

Fee Formula:

Total Fee = (5,000 lamports x number of signatures) + (compute unit price in micro-lamports x compute units consumed)

Fee lifecycle:

1. Transaction submitted to the Solana network
2. Compute units consumed by the transaction runtime
3. Base fee deducted: 5,000 lamports per signature
4. Optional priority fee applied: compute unit price x CUs consumed
5. 50% of base fee burned; 50% paid to the block-producing validator
6. 100% of priority fee paid to the block-producing validator

The Base Fee: Solana's Fixed, Deterministic Fee Component

Solana's base fee is 5,000 lamports per signature (0.000005 SOL), approximately $0.00025 at current SOL prices (verify at publication, source: CoinGecko). Source: docs.solana.com/transaction_fees.

The base fee is deterministic, meaning it is fixed and predictable regardless of how busy the network is. This is a structural difference from Ethereum's dynamic base fee, which rises and falls with demand. On Solana, the base fee does not change in response to congestion.

The fee is charged per signature, not per transaction. Most standard transactions carry one signature (the sender's). Multi-signature transactions carry additional signatures and cost more in base fees: a two-signature transaction costs 10,000 lamports (0.00001 SOL) in base fees alone.

The minimum possible Solana transaction fee is 5,000 lamports for a single-signature transaction with no priority fee added.

Compute Units: How Solana Measures Computational Work

Compute units (CUs) measure the computational work a transaction consumes on the Solana runtime. Think of compute units as the fuel a transaction burns: simple transfers burn a few hundred CUs, while complex operations burn tens of thousands.

Each transaction receives a default compute unit budget of 200,000 CUs. The maximum allowable cap per transaction is 1,400,000 CUs. Source: docs.solana.com/developing/programming-model/runtime#compute-budget.

Compute units determine the size of any optional priority fee. The formula is:

Priority Fee = Compute Unit Price (in micro-lamports) x Compute Units Consumed

A concrete example: if you set a compute unit price of 1,000 micro-lamports and your transaction consumes 150,000 compute units, your priority fee is 150,000,000 micro-lamports (0.00015 SOL, approximately $0.02 at current prices; verify at publication).

The difference between transaction types is significant in CU terms. A simple SOL transfer might consume 300 to 500 compute units. A token swap on Jupiter or Raydium (Solana-native decentralized exchanges) can consume 50,000 to 200,000 compute units. This is why complex DeFi transactions cost more than simple transfers even when the base fee is the same.

If a transaction exceeds its compute unit budget, it fails. The base fee is still partially charged even for a failed transaction. Developers should set the compute unit limit slightly above estimated actual consumption to avoid this. The SetComputeUnitLimit instruction in the Solana ComputeBudget program handles this programmatically.

The Priority Fee: Solana's Optional Speed-Up Component

The priority fee is an optional add-on, denominated in micro-lamports per compute unit, that increases the likelihood of faster transaction processing by incentivizing validators to include the transaction earlier in a block.

A micro-lamport is one-millionth of a lamport (10⁻⁶ lamports). Priority fees are priced per compute unit in micro-lamports because the amounts involved require this level of precision.

Priority fees are genuinely optional. During normal network conditions, transactions without a priority fee process at the base fee level without significant delays. Adding a priority fee becomes important when the network is busy.

Priority fees go 100% to the block-producing validator. Unlike base fees (which are 50% burned), no portion of the priority fee is destroyed. How and when to use priority fees is covered in the next section.

How Solana Priority Fees Work: When to Use Them and How to Set Them

Priority fees give users a mechanism to move their transactions toward the front of the queue during periods of high network demand. The fee is market-driven: users set the price, validators respond to it, and transactions with higher priority fees get processed before those with lower fees.

How Priority Fees Work: A Step-by-Step Explanation

Solana's priority fee mechanism works in five steps:

1. The user sets a compute unit price (in micro-lamports per CU) and, optionally, a compute unit limit for the transaction.
2. The priority fee is calculated: Priority Fee = Compute Unit Price x Compute Units Consumed.
3. The total fee is deducted from the user's SOL wallet: Base Fee + Priority Fee.
4. Validators receive transactions and sort them partly by priority fee level. Higher-fee transactions are more likely to be included in the next block.
5. The priority fee goes 100% to the validator who produces the block containing the transaction.

Wallets like Phantom and Solflare present this as a "Transaction Speed" or "Priority" slider in the transaction confirmation screen. The labels vary, but the underlying mechanism is the same. Developers can set priority fees programmatically via the ComputeBudget program's SetComputeUnitPrice instruction.

When Should You Use a Solana Priority Fee?

Whether to add a priority fee depends on two factors: how time-sensitive your transaction is, and how congested the network is at the moment you submit.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on Solana, including trading platforms, lending protocols, and yield strategies, often require transactions to land within a specific time window. For high-frequency DeFi activity, a small priority fee during moderate congestion is a practical cost of operating reliably.

NFT mints for popular collections represent the highest-priority-fee scenario. During a hot mint, thousands of users submit transactions simultaneously, and only those with sufficient priority fees land reliably. Validators fill blocks with the highest-fee transactions first, pushing lower-fee transactions to wait or drop.

What Happens If You Set a Priority Fee Too Low?

During periods of low network demand, a zero or minimal priority fee is sufficient. Your transaction processes at the base fee level without issues.

During high congestion, the outcome changes. Your transaction may be deprioritized, delayed for multiple block cycles, or dropped from the queue entirely. A dropped transaction is never confirmed, and the base fee is not charged if the transaction is never processed.

To avoid this, check recent fee levels before submitting time-sensitive transactions. The getRecentPrioritizationFees RPC method returns current prioritization fee data from the network. Third-party tools like the Helius priority fee API provide the same data in a more accessible format.

A practical strategy: setting your priority fee at or above the 75th percentile of recent fees provides reliable transaction landing during moderate congestion without overpaying.

Why Are Solana Transaction Fees So Low? The Architecture Behind the Cost

Four architectural decisions in Solana's design keep fees low. Each is listed below, followed by a closer look at the most consequential one.

• Proof of History creates a cryptographic timestamp sequence that allows validators to process transactions in parallel, increasing throughput without requiring network-wide coordination before each transaction.
• Solana's theoretical maximum throughput of approximately 65,000 transactions per second (TPS) under ideal conditions means more transactions share fixed network infrastructure costs, reducing the per-transaction fee.
• Solana's base fee is deterministic and fixed. It does not participate in a fee auction the way Ethereum's dynamic base fee does, which prevents the fee escalation cycles that make Ethereum expensive during demand spikes.
• Tower BFT, Solana's consensus mechanism (a variant of Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance built on top of Proof of History), is computationally efficient, reducing the overhead cost of reaching network agreement.

One honest caveat sits alongside this architecture: Solana fees can and do spike during periods of network congestion. Low fees are a structural tendency, not a guarantee.

Proof of History (PoH) is the foundational technical reason Solana fees stay low. PoH is a cryptographic timekeeping mechanism designed by Anatoly Yakovenko that establishes a verifiable, time-ordered sequence of events before consensus is reached. Because validators already agree on the order of transactions before the full consensus process runs, they can process transactions in parallel rather than sequentially. This parallel processing is what allows Solana to handle high transaction volumes without proportionally increasing per-transaction costs. For a deeper technical explanation, see Solana's Proof of History explained, and for a fuller walkthrough, our guide to Proof of History.

Tower BFT uses PoH as a shared clock, allowing validators to reach agreement faster than traditional consensus protocols require.

Solana vs. Ethereum vs. Bitcoin: Transaction Fee Comparison

Solana transaction fees are significantly lower than Ethereum Mainnet gas fees under normal network conditions. The average Solana transaction costs approximately $0.00025 compared to Ethereum Mainnet's average of approximately $3–$15 per transaction during 2024 (source: Etherscan Gas Tracker; verify at publication, as figures fluctuate with network demand).

Fee data sourced from Solscan (Solana), Etherscan (Ethereum), and mempool.space (Bitcoin). Figures represent average fees during normal network conditions as of publication date; verify against live data before use. Fees can vary significantly during periods of network congestion. TPS figures for Solana represent a theoretical maximum under ideal conditions; Ethereum and Bitcoin figures represent base-layer averages.

Among major Layer 1 networks, Solana's typical transaction fee is the lowest, followed by Bitcoin Mainnet, with Ethereum Mainnet the highest under normal conditions.

Ethereum's fee model operates under EIP-1559, which introduced a dynamic base fee that adjusts block-by-block based on network demand. This base fee is burned rather than paid to validators; Ethereum validators instead receive a "priority tip" that users add separately. For a detailed breakdown of how Ethereum's fee model works, see how Ethereum gas fees work.

Solana's model inverts several of these dynamics. The base fee is fixed rather than dynamic. The optional priority fee is variable, but it is an add-on rather than the primary market signal. Only 50% of the base fee is burned, compared to 100% on Ethereum.

Ethereum Mainnet's higher fees reflect, in part, its larger validator set, longer track record, and higher degree of decentralization. These are architectural choices that prioritize security and censorship-resistance over throughput. The fee comparison is about transaction cost efficiency, not an overall ranking of which network is superior.

Bitcoin uses a UTXO-based fee model where fees are determined by transaction size in bytes and current network demand, rather than by computational complexity. Bitcoin does not burn fees; all fees go to miners.

For high-frequency DeFi activity (executing dozens or hundreds of transactions per day), Solana's fee advantage over Ethereum Mainnet is substantially more pronounced than for occasional users. Ethereum Layer 2 networks (Arbitrum, Optimism) have fees closer to Solana's range and represent a middle path for Ethereum-native users.

Where Do Solana Transaction Fees Go? Validators, Burns, and Tokenomics

50% of every Solana base transaction fee goes to the validator that produced the block. The remaining 50% is permanently burned, removed from the SOL supply forever.

How Solana Transaction Fees Are Distributed

Solana's base fee is split equally between two destinations: the block-producing validator receives 50%, and 50% is permanently removed from the SOL supply.

The priority fee follows a different rule: 100% of the priority fee goes to the block-producing validator. None of the priority fee is burned.

This structure creates a direct incentive for validators to include higher-priority-fee transactions in their blocks. A validator processing a transaction with a 50,000 micro-lamport priority fee earns more than one processing a transaction with a 500 micro-lamport priority fee, so validators rationally sort their blocks to maximize priority fee income.

Validators must stake SOL as collateral to participate in the network and earn these fee distributions. Staked SOL also entitles validators to block rewards beyond transaction fees. For a full explanation of how validator staking works on Solana, see our guide to Solana staking.

High-volume DeFi activity on Solana, including token launches, automated market makers, and arbitrage bots, generates millions of transactions per day and therefore substantial fee revenue and burn volume.

The Solana Fee Burn Mechanism and Its Impact on SOL Supply

Every time a Solana transaction is processed, half of the base fee is permanently destroyed. The SOL representing that 50% is sent to a burn address from which it can never be recovered, removing it from the circulating supply.

As Solana transaction volume grows, the total burn rate increases. This creates supply-side deflationary pressure: more transactions mean more SOL permanently removed from circulation. The relationship scales directly with adoption.

Compared to Ethereum's EIP-1559 mechanism: Ethereum burns 100% of its base fee, a higher burn ratio than Solana's 50%. However, Solana's higher transaction volume means the total SOL burned per day can be substantial during peak periods, even at the 50% rate. The Solana vs. Ethereum EIP-1559 comparison is therefore not simply about burn ratios but about the interaction of burn percentage and transaction volume.

The honest answer to whether Solana's fee burn makes SOL deflationary: the fee burn creates deflationary pressure on SOL supply, but as of publication (verify at publication, source: Solscan fee burn data), validator issuance rewards (the new SOL created to pay validators for their work) still exceed total fee burns on a net basis. SOL is not currently net deflationary. However, as transaction volume grows, the gap between issuance and burn continues to narrow. This is one factor that affects SOL supply dynamics; it is not investment advice.

Solana Fee Behavior During Network Congestion: What to Expect and How to Respond

If your Solana fee came in higher than the $0.00025 base fee, network congestion is the most likely explanation. Here is why Solana fees behave the way they do during high-demand periods.

Solana uses a local fee market, which means network congestion on one popular program does not automatically raise fees for unrelated transactions on the same network. This is a structural difference from Ethereum's global fee market, where any congestion raises fees for all users regardless of what they are transacting.

In practice: if a popular NFT collection is minting and generating thousands of transactions per second to a single contract address, fees for that specific program rise as users bid for block space. A user sending SOL to a friend at the same time, interacting with a different program, may pay the standard base fee without any spike.

During congestion, the base fee remains constant at 5,000 lamports per signature. What spikes is the priority fee. Users bid against each other for block inclusion, pushing the effective priority fee level higher until congestion subsides.

Historical context matters here. Solana has experienced significant congestion events. During the Metaplex botting incidents of April 2022, automated bots flooded the network with NFT-related transactions, causing transaction success rates to drop sharply for under-priced transactions and priority fees to spike above normal levels by orders of magnitude. Similar patterns occurred during meme coin launch periods in 2024, when speculation-driven transaction volume briefly saturated block capacity.

If your Solana transaction fee appears higher than expected, the most common causes are:

1. Network congestion causing your wallet to automatically add or increase a priority fee
2. A complex transaction consuming more compute units than a simple transfer would
3. An NFT mint where the rent-exempt deposit is displayed alongside the fee, making the total appear higher than the transaction fee alone
4. Your wallet set to "fast" or "turbo" mode, which automatically applies a higher priority fee

If you encounter unusually high fees or failed transactions, check Solana's network status page to see whether a congestion event is in progress. Adjust your priority fee using the wallet UI, or wait until off-peak hours to retry.

Solana has implemented several improvements to address congestion: adoption of the QUIC protocol for transaction transport, introduction of the local fee market mechanism, and improvements to the validator scheduler. These changes have reduced the frequency and severity of congestion-related issues, but have not eliminated them. Solana's historical record includes multiple network outages between 2021 and 2022. The network has been more stable since, though congestion events during peak demand periods remain a known risk.

How to Reduce Solana Transaction Fees: 5 Practical Strategies

Five strategies consistently reduce Solana transaction fees for both casual users and high-frequency traders.

1. Transact during off-peak network hours. Priority fees are lowest when network demand is low. Check Solana Explorer for current network activity before transacting. Early morning hours (UTC) typically see lower traffic than peak afternoon and evening periods.

2. Skip the priority fee for non-time-sensitive transactions. The 5,000-lamport base fee is sufficient during normal conditions. Add a priority fee only when your transaction genuinely needs to land in the next block. Sending SOL to a friend can wait; closing an arbitrage position cannot.

3. Set accurate compute unit limits (developers). Setting a precise compute unit limit, slightly above the transaction's actual consumption, prevents over-allocation. Over-allocated compute units waste the fee budget without improving transaction outcomes.

4. Use fee estimation tools before setting priority fees. The getRecentPrioritizationFees RPC method returns current prioritization fee data from the network, allowing you to calibrate your priority fee against what is actually landing. The Helius priority fee API provides the same data in an accessible format. For cost-sensitive, non-time-sensitive transactions, the 25th to 50th percentile of recent fees is typically sufficient.

5. Monitor Solana's network status before high-demand events. During predictable high-traffic periods (token launches, popular NFT mints, major protocol announcements), fees spike predictably. Waiting until the event subsides can reduce your priority fee requirement significantly. Check Solana's status page and Solscan for real-time network conditions.

To pay any Solana transaction fee, you need SOL in your wallet. Purchase SOL on major cryptocurrency exchanges including Coinbase, Binance, or Kraken, then transfer it to a self-custody wallet like Phantom or Solflare.

How Much Does a Solana Transaction Cost? Current Fee Data by Transaction Type

Solana transaction costs vary based on the type of transaction, the number of signatures involved, and the compute units consumed.

Fee data sourced from Solscan as of publication date. USD equivalents calculated from CoinGecko SOL price at time of publication. Verify all figures before use; update at each 90-day content refresh.

The NFT minting cost requires a specific clarification. The total cost of minting an NFT on Solana appears higher than a standard SOL transfer because creating a new on-chain account requires a rent-exempt reserve deposit of approximately 0.002 SOL. This deposit is not a transaction fee. It is a storage reserve that keeps the account open on the blockchain. The deposit can be recovered in full if the account is later closed. The actual transaction fee component of an NFT mint is the same base fee (5,000 lamports) as any other single-signature transaction.

Frequently Asked Questions: Solana Transaction Fee Cost & Mechanics

What is a transaction fee on Solana?

A Solana transaction fee is the cost paid in SOL to process and record a transaction on the Solana blockchain. The minimum fee is 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature, approximately $0.00025 at current SOL prices. Fees have two components: a fixed base fee and an optional priority fee denominated in micro-lamports per compute unit.

What is a lamport in Solana?

A lamport is the smallest denomination of SOL, Solana's native cryptocurrency. One SOL equals 1,000,000,000 (one billion) lamports. Named after computer scientist Leslie Lamport, lamports allow Solana transaction fees to be priced in tiny fractions, making them among the lowest of any major Layer 1 blockchain. Source: docs.solana.com/terminology#lamport.

What are compute units on Solana?

Compute units (CUs) measure the computational work a transaction consumes on the Solana runtime. Simple SOL transfers use a few hundred CUs; complex DeFi swaps can consume 50,000–200,000 CUs. The default per-transaction compute budget is 200,000 CUs, with a maximum cap of 1,400,000 CUs. Compute unit consumption directly determines the size of any optional priority fee.

How much is the average Solana transaction fee?

As of publication (verify against Solscan), the base fee on Solana is 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature, approximately $0.00025 at current SOL prices. Average total fees including priority fees typically range from $0.001 to $0.005 during normal network conditions. Fees rise during congestion events.

How much does it cost to mint an NFT on Solana?

Minting an NFT on Solana costs the standard base transaction fee (5,000 lamports) plus a rent-exempt deposit of approximately 0.002 SOL to create the new on-chain account. The total is roughly $0.20–$0.50 at current SOL prices (verify at publication). The deposit is not a fee; it is a recoverable storage reserve returned when the account is closed.

Are Solana fees lower than Ethereum?

Yes. Solana's base transaction fee is approximately $0.00025 compared to Ethereum Mainnet's average of approximately $3–$15 per transaction during 2024 (verify at publication, source: Etherscan Gas Tracker). For high-frequency DeFi activity, this difference is substantially more pronounced. Ethereum's higher fees partly reflect its larger validator set, longer track record, and higher degree of decentralization.

Does Solana have gas fees like Ethereum?

No. Solana does not use the term "gas fee." That terminology is specific to Ethereum's fee model. Solana calls these costs transaction fees. Both serve the same purpose (compensating the network for processing a transaction), but the underlying mechanics, denomination units, and market dynamics differ structurally.

How does Solana calculate transaction fees?

Solana transaction fees have two parts. The base fee equals 5,000 lamports multiplied by the number of signatures on the transaction. The optional priority fee equals the compute unit price (in micro-lamports) multiplied by the number of compute units the transaction consumes. The total fee deducted from your wallet is the sum of both components.

How do priority fees work on Solana?

A Solana priority fee is an optional additional amount that increases a transaction's chances of landing in the next block. The fee equals the compute unit price (in micro-lamports) multiplied by the compute units consumed. Here is how the mechanism works step by step: (1) You set a compute unit price in micro-lamports per CU. (2) Your priority fee = compute unit price x compute units your transaction consumes. (3) Validators sort transactions partly by priority fee level, giving higher-fee transactions earlier block inclusion. (4) The priority fee goes 100% to the block-producing validator and is not burned.

What percentage of Solana fees are burned?

50% of every base transaction fee on Solana is permanently burned, removed from the circulating SOL supply. The remaining 50% goes to the validator that processed the transaction. Priority fees are not burned; 100% of the priority fee goes to the block-producing validator. Source: docs.solana.com/transaction_fees#fee-collection.

Do I need SOL in my wallet to pay transaction fees?

Yes. Solana transaction fees are deducted directly from the SOL balance in your wallet when a transaction is submitted. You can purchase SOL on major cryptocurrency exchanges including Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken, then transfer it to a Solana-compatible wallet such as Phantom or Solflare.

Can Solana transactions fail due to insufficient fees?

Yes, in two ways. First, if your wallet holds insufficient SOL to cover the base fee, the transaction fails immediately and is not broadcast to the network. Second, if your priority fee is too low during high network congestion, validators may deprioritize or drop your transaction from the queue. The fix: add SOL to your wallet, increase your priority fee using the wallet UI, and resubmit.

Explore SOL on Bybit

Use the Solana price page to review current SOL market data, or access the SOL/USDT spot market if spot trading matches your objectives. Bybit trading activity is not the same as submitting a Solana on-chain transaction; network fees may still apply when depositing or withdrawing SOL on the Solana network.

Solana Transaction Fees: Key Takeaways

• Solana's base transaction fee is 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature, approximately $0.00025 at current prices, among the lowest of any major Layer 1 blockchain
• Fees have two components: a fixed, deterministic base fee and an optional priority fee denominated in micro-lamports per compute unit
• Priority fees incentivize faster transaction processing; use them during congestion or for time-sensitive actions like NFT mints and DeFi arbitrage
• 50% of every base fee is permanently burned from the SOL supply; 50% goes to the block-producing validator
• Priority fees are not burned; 100% goes to the validator who processes the block
• Solana's low fees stem from Proof of History's high-throughput architecture, but fees can spike during network congestion events
• For time-sensitive transactions, set your priority fee at or above the 75th percentile of recent fees using the getRecentPrioritizationFees RPC method or Solana Explorer

For a broader look at how Solana compares to Ethereum across cost, speed, and use cases, see how Solana and Ethereum compare.