What are the alternative Gas price prediction tools for Ethereum after GasNow shuts down?
Source: ChainNews
Written by: Donnager
GasNow is the data service in the Ethereum ecosystem that focuses most on providing gas price predictions, covering a variety of tools such as apps, plugins, and APIs. However, the team officially shut down the service on October 16. The timing of the shutdown may be related to domestic regulatory policies.
GasNow aggregates data from the Spark Pool's mempool, allowing it to provide relatively more accurate results compared to prediction tools based on historical data. As a result, GasNow's tools received unanimous praise from the community, leading many to seek similar alternatives after the service went offline.
On the other hand, in addition to GasNow's more accurate gas predictions, they also offered a diverse range of tools to meet different user needs, including browser plugins, desktop plugins, mobile apps, and APIs. Few other services can provide such a wide variety of tools.
Personally, I prefer using their API and browser plugin because the plugin can be placed next to the MetaMask wallet extension, allowing users to view real-time gas prices for transactions without clicking on GasNow. This value can then be filled in when using MetaMask for transactions. The API service is also well-suited for integration into other custom script logic. For example, I created a script based on iOS Shortcuts that retrieves gas prices with just one button click.
Therefore, depending on different needs, it may be necessary to look for alternative services, including browser plugins, apps, and APIs. However, it should be noted in advance that even if these services can functionally replace GasNow, the data sources and calculation methods of different tools vary, so their accuracy may not match that of GasNow.
Browser Plugin: Blocknative
Blocknative launched the Blocknative Ethereum Gas Estimator browser plugin for Google Chrome and Brave in September this year. More thoughtfully, they provide gas price estimates for both traditional transactions and EIP-1559 transactions, whereas GasNow only offered gas prices for traditional transactions, although the difference is not significant.
The numbers displayed are Blocknative's real-time gas prices.
The team stated that the free version of the plugin will update the price estimate every 5 seconds, with data aggregated by Blocknative through the Ethereum Mempool to provide the Gas Platform API.
Clicking on the plugin reveals more detailed data.
Mobile Apps or Desktop Widgets: Wallets like Zerion
For mobile devices, wallet tools generally come with built-in gas data services (most aggregate third-party data). However, in terms of experience, Zerion is one of the few applications that directly provides a desktop widget on iOS. By adding this widget to the home screen, users can view gas prices.
However, due to system limitations on the refresh frequency of iOS desktop widgets, data updates may not be particularly timely, likely resulting in a delay of several minutes. Nevertheless, it is sufficient for viewing gas trends.
Web Services: ETH Gas Station, Etherscan, OKLink
Viewing gas predictions on the web may be the most common method, but the experience may not be as integrated as the aforementioned plugins or apps.
The main web services frequently used by the Ethereum community to find gas data are Etherscan and ETH Gas Station, while OKLink is also a popular choice for many.
API Services: ETH Gas Station, Etherscan, Blocknative, etc.
For data-related API services, there are many options, both paid and free. The most commonly used ones are ETH Gas Station, Etherscan, and Blocknative. These data APIs support the most common HTTP calls, making it relatively easy to call and obtain data through iOS Shortcuts or Python.
However, regarding the prediction accuracy of these services, further observation over time is needed.