Eric Conner opened a thread on the Ethereum Magicians forum at 17:46 UTC on March 1, 20191. After a greeting, his next line was a request: "I really think we should start discussion around this EIP." The proposal was EIP-1559. Vitalik Buterin had filed it on November 6, 2018, as a plan to change how Ethereum users pay fees2.
Conner made the case in plain terms. “The current first auction fee market works but is extremely inefficient and a large UX barrier for adoption,” he wrote1. The plan sets a network fee for each block and burns it, which removes those coins from the supply4. Users can pay a premium on top if they want, Conner wrote.
On April 16, 2019, Conner submitted the proposal as a formal draft3. GitHub records the merge on April 29, 2019. The final text lists six authors, with Conner second after Buterin4.
London, the upgrade that carried EIP-1559, went live at block 12,965,000 at 12:33 UTC on August 5, 202178. That first block burned 0.030025257 ETH. Blocks could also stretch further when demand spiked4. The Ethereum Foundation told miners that a target of 15,000,000 gas before London meant a limit of 30,000,000 after it. As of 04:07 UTC on October 13, 2026, ultrasound.money counts 4,640,880 ETH burned since London14.
The campaign behind the code
Buterin wrote the plan, and Conner campaigned for it. His March 2019 post asked for the change in the Istanbul upgrade1. The change waited for London, in August 2021, more than two years later7.
Coverage of the fight mostly credited the author. The Block's February 2021 story on the miners' revolt says EIP-1559 was "First proposed by Vitalik Buterin in 2018" and leaves Conner out6. GitHub's record shows who carried it: Conner opened the discussion thread, filed the draft and joined the author list134.
Money followed the push. In July 2020 the EIP-1559 Community Fund topped Gitcoin's sixth grants round, raising $65,473 from 412 contributors5. Gitcoin's case study names Conner and Buterin as early large donors, at roughly $2,400 each. Matching funds rose to $35,578 once a wave of smaller donors joined. The fund paid for client code, research and economic analysis.
Cointelegraph later called Conner a core developer with an 11-year tie to the Ethereum community15. He left that community on January 21, 2025, after Buterin dismissed calls for a leadership shakeup at the Ethereum Foundation. “Perhaps some day those in leadership roles will realign with the community but for now, I am out,” Conner wrote in an X post quoted by Cointelegraph. He moved to Freysa.ai, an AI project.
Both sides, in their own words
Did the fee burn deliver what its backers promised?
“The current first auction fee market works but is extremely inefficient and a large UX barrier for adoption”
“It is a tyranny of the majority in the name of better UX (in fact not). It is robbery”
What the burn did
Etherscan's daily data start on August 6, 2021, and count 150,165 ETH burned that month9. The busiest month came in January 2022, with 398,062 ETH burned. December 2025 was the quietest full month, with 600 ETH.
Ethereum burned 398,062 ETH in fees in January 2022 and 600 ETH in December 2025
ETH burned each month under EIP-1559, in thousands of ETH; August 2021 counts from Aug. 6
- The busiest month and the quietest month
- Every other month from August 2021
- Height: ETH burned, thousands
Source: Etherscan [9].
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Aug. 2021 | 150.2K ETH |
| Sept. 2021 | 252.6K ETH |
| Oct. 2021 | 302.8K ETH |
| Nov. 2021 | 361.9K ETH |
| Dec. 2021 | 247.3K ETH |
| Jan. 2022 | 398.1K ETH |
| Feb. 2022 | 212.0K ETH |
| March 2022 | 118.6K ETH |
| April 2022 | 137.1K ETH |
| May 2022 | 198.1K ETH |
| June 2022 | 122.1K ETH |
| July 2022 | 63.3K ETH |
| Aug. 2022 | 38.4K ETH |
| Sept. 2022 | 34.9K ETH |
| Oct. 2022 | 58.1K ETH |
| Nov. 2022 | 53.2K ETH |
| Dec. 2022 | 49.1K ETH |
| Jan. 2023 | 65.1K ETH |
| Feb. 2023 | 84.9K ETH |
| March 2023 | 92.1K ETH |
| April 2023 | 108.1K ETH |
| May 2023 | 204.6K ETH |
| June 2023 | 69.1K ETH |
| July 2023 | 82.8K ETH |
| Aug. 2023 | 72.1K ETH |
| Sept. 2023 | 44.3K ETH |
| Oct. 2023 | 41.3K ETH |
| Nov. 2023 | 102.0K ETH |
| Dec. 2023 | 127.1K ETH |
| Jan. 2024 | 75.0K ETH |
| Feb. 2024 | 110.9K ETH |
| March 2024 | 147.6K ETH |
| April 2024 | 54.6K ETH |
| May 2024 | 26.7K ETH |
| June 2024 | 26.3K ETH |
| July 2024 | 17.1K ETH |
| Aug. 2024 | 13.5K ETH |
| Sept. 2024 | 26.9K ETH |
| Oct. 2024 | 41.6K ETH |
| Nov. 2024 | 46.6K ETH |
| Dec. 2024 | 47.1K ETH |
| Jan. 2025 | 33.9K ETH |
| Feb. 2025 | 9.6K ETH |
| March 2025 | 3.7K ETH |
| April 2025 | 4.7K ETH |
| May 2025 | 9.0K ETH |
| June 2025 | 7.7K ETH |
| July 2025 | 7.8K ETH |
| Aug. 2025 | 3.3K ETH |
| Sept. 2025 | 3.9K ETH |
| Oct. 2025 | 4.7K ETH |
| Nov. 2025 | 2.4K ETH |
| Dec. 2025 | 0.6K ETH |
| Jan. 2026 | 1.1K ETH |
| Feb. 2026 | 1.6K ETH |
| March 2026 | 0.9K ETH |
| April 2026 | 3.8K ETH |
| May 2026 | 2.4K ETH |
| June 2026 | 1.8K ETH |
| July 2026 | 1.1K ETH |
| Aug. 2026 | 1.2K ETH |
| Sept. 2026 | 1.9K ETH |
Two later upgrades changed the picture. The Merge moved Ethereum to proof of stake at block 15,537,394 on September 15, 202210. Mining ended with it. Issuance is the new ETH the protocol pays to those who secure the chain, and it fell. Coin Metrics counts 3.96 million ETH issued in 2022 and 0.75 million in 202311.
That made 2023 the year the burn won. Ethereum burned 1.09 million ETH in 20239. Supply fell from 120,525,910 ETH on January 1, 2023, to 120,182,750 on January 1, 2024, Etherscan's supply chart shows12.
Dencun came on March 13, 202413. The Ethereum Foundation said its new data blobs "will help reduce L2 transaction fees". Monthly burn fell from 147,620 ETH in March 2024 to 54,640 in April and 17,114 in July9.
Here is the full ledger, year by year. In 2022 Ethereum issued 3.96 million ETH and burned 1.48 million911. The 2023 figures were 0.75 million issued and 1.09 million burned. Issuance in 2024 was 0.93 million against a burn of 0.63 million. For 2025, the network issued 0.96 million and burned 0.09 million.
Ethereum burned 1.09 million ETH in 2023, more than it issued, and 0.09 million in 2025
ETH issued and ETH burned in each calendar year, 2022 to 2025, in millions of ETH
- ETH issued
- ETH burned
Sources: Etherscan [9]; Coin Metrics [11].
Read the chart as a table
| Item | ETH issued | ETH burned |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 3.96M ETH | 1.48M ETH |
| 2023 | 0.75M ETH | 1.09M ETH |
| 2024 | 0.93M ETH | 0.63M ETH |
| 2025 | 0.96M ETH | 0.09M ETH |
The case for the burn
Conner argued the burn did two jobs. “One great benefit of this EIP is because the MINFEE is burned and must be paid in Eth, we are making sure economic abstraction does not occur on the protocol level which is extremely important for long term Eth value,” Conner wrote1. Read plainly, he wanted every user to pay in ETH, and he named ETH's value as the stake.
One big mining pool agreed. F2Pool, with about 11 percent of the network's hashrate, backed the plan in February 20216. “Today, the general community along with core developers are siding with evolving Ethereum to include EIP-1559,” F2Pool wrote in a post quoted by The Block.
His side has one clean year on the record. In 2023 the burn passed issuance by 0.34 million ETH, and supply shrank91112.
The case against
Sparkpool, then the largest pool with about 24 percent of the hashrate, fought the burn6. “It is a tyranny of the majority in the name of better UX (in fact not). It is robbery,” Sparkpool said in a Twitter thread on February 5, 2021, quoted by The Block.
Bitfly, which ran Ethermine with about 20 percent of the hashrate, agreed. In a January 2021 Twitter post quoted by The Block, it said it was "against adopting EIP-1559 in its current state," and it warned that "Ethereum's future may be at risk"6. With Sparkpool on board, the pools opposed to the plan held more than half the hashrate, The Block reported. The money at stake was large. Miners had earned more than $600 million in fees since the start of February 2021, The Block's research team counted.
Sparkpool's thread put the objection in terms of ownership. “Why we love ether and btc? Because it gives us perfect property right,” the pool wrote6. “EIP 1559 will break this. We are sad to see many people only care about price now.” The vote went the other way, and London shipped with the burn on August 5, 202178.
What to watch
Each side needs a different number. Conner's case needs the burn to matter again: Ethereum burned 1,881 ETH in September 20269. Supply rose from 121,344,886 ETH on January 1, 2026, to 122,130,479 on October 12, 202612.
Sparkpool's side spoke for miners, who left the network at the Merge in September 202210. The yearly ledger serves both sides911. From 2022 through 2025, the burn passed issuance in 2023 alone.
Sources
- Eric Conner (econoar), "EIP-1559: Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain," Ethereum Magicians, Mar. 1, 2019, https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/eip-1559-fee-market-change-for-eth-1-0-chain/2783
- Vitalik Buterin (vbuterin), "Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain (issue #1559)," Ethereum EIPs (GitHub), Nov. 6, 2018, https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/1559
- Eric Conner (econoar), "EIP-1559: Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain (pull request #1943)," Ethereum EIPs (GitHub), opened Apr. 16, 2019, merged Apr. 29, 2019, https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/pull/1943
- Vitalik Buterin, Eric Conner, Rick Dudley, Matthew Slipper, Ian Norden, Abdelhamid Bakhta, "EIP-1559: Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain," Ethereum EIPs (eips.ethereum.org), created Apr. 13, 2019, https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1559
- Gitcoin, "EIP-1559: How Quadratic Funding Legitimized Ethereum's Most Important Fee Market Reform," Feb. 13, 2026, https://gitcoin.co/case-studies/eip-1559-how-quadratic-funding-legitimized-ethereum-s-most-important-fee-market-reform
- Wolfie Zhao, "Ethereum's biggest mining pools take opposing stances on EIP-1559 plan," The Block, Feb. 26, 2021, https://www.theblock.co/post/96316/ethereum-mining-pools-divided-eip1559
- Ethereum Foundation, "London Mainnet Announcement," Ethereum Foundation Blog, July 15, 2021, https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/07/15/london-mainnet-announcement
- Etherscan, "Ethereum block 12965000," mined Aug. 5, 2021, https://etherscan.io/block/12965000
- Etherscan, "Daily Ether Burnt Chart," daily data from Aug. 6, 2021 to Oct. 12, 2026, read 04:08 UTC on Oct. 13, 2026, https://etherscan.io/chart/dailyethburnt
- Etherscan, "Ethereum block 15537394," proposed Sept. 15, 2022, https://etherscan.io/block/15537394
- Coin Metrics, "Ethereum asset metrics, IssTotNtv, daily, 2022 to 2025," read 04:20 UTC on Oct. 13, 2026, https://community-api.coinmetrics.io/v4/timeseries/asset-metrics?assets=eth&metrics=IssTotNtv&frequency=1d&start_time=2022-01-01&end_time=2025-12-31&page_size=10000
- Etherscan, "Ether Total Supply and Market Capitalization Chart," read 04:08 UTC on Oct. 13, 2026, https://etherscan.io/chart/ethersupplygrowth
- Ethereum Foundation, "Dencun Mainnet Announcement," Ethereum Foundation Blog, Feb. 27, 2024, https://blog.ethereum.org/2024/02/27/dencun-mainnet-announcement
- ultrasound.money, "Burn sums since London (fees API)," read 04:07 UTC on Oct. 13, 2026, https://ultrasound.money/api/v2/fees/burn-sums
- Arijit Sarkar, "Ethereum core developer departs for AI amid leadership concerns," Cointelegraph, Jan. 22, 2025, https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-developer-leaves-for-ai-leadership-concerns