As NFTs continue to reach new heights, NFT gas wars are becoming more commonplace, and much harder to win. But what are gas wars? And how do you win an NFT gas war if you find yourself in one? In this guide we will take you through all of the steps to mint your new NFT without warring over gas. Plus, we’ll also show you how to escape a gas war if you no longer want to partake and your transaction is stuck!
What are NFT gas wars?
NFT gas wars occur during a project launch or high-value sales when a large number of people compete to get their hands on a specific NFT. Essentially, the demand causes Ethereum transaction prices to spike due to network congestion.
To win a gas war, some end up paying insanely high gas fees. For others, their transactions may fail. To illustrate, one aspiring minter paid $430,000 in fees for a single failed transaction on Ethereum. While this can be an unpleasant experience for everyone involved, all is not lost. With the right strategy and planning, you too can win these NFT gas wars!
Why do Gas Wars Happen?
To win an NFT gas war, you need to prepare. Generally, if you’re having to deal with a gas war, the NFT dropping will have a huge following.
For example, if a blue-chip project drops a second collection, a large number of people are likely to want in. A good example of this was Cool Cats Pets. Often, the same goes for a celebrity drop, as we’ve seen with Snoop Dogg NFT drops too.
Alternatively, when you want to make a transaction, you should know if any drops that could increase network activity is also happening at the same time. The best way to know when such events happen is to track our NFT calendar.
How To Win an NFT Gas War
Put simply, to win a gas war, you have to pay a higher gas fee to push through your transaction before everyone else’s.
Firstly, go to Ethereum Gas Tracker to find out what the current gas fee is. To get your transaction approved, you have to set your transaction fee higher than the ‘high’ rate (shown below). Once you know this amount, set a gas budget and stick to it. For hyped projects, you’ll only have a small window to get your NFT—so act quickly!
How To Customise Your Ethereum Gas Fee
Most wallets will have a default gas fee generated automatically. However, in a gas war your transaction will fail due to the ‘out of gas’ error. Instead, we will customize our gas price to guarantee a win.
Firstly, start the transaction by clicking mint and your wallet’s transaction page will open up.
- Click the ‘Edit’ option next to the estimated gas fee.
- Now, choose ‘high’ for faster transactions. This means you’ll have to pay a higher gas fee.
- Under ‘Advanced Options’, you can manually increase the gas as well. While ‘Max fee’ is the maximum amount you are willing to pay as your gas fee, ‘Max priority fee’ is the miner’s tip.
- You can also change the gas limit. However, it is not recommended unless you are a veteran.
- Lastly, click ‘save’ and submit.
How to Escape an NFT Gas War
Although setting a higher fee or speeding up the transaction by adding more funds usually works, sometimes that is not the case. Often, for very high profile mints, the NFT gas fees can get so crazy that you can end up paying thousands in fees. However, if you don’t want to keep adding funds, you can also just cancel the transaction. This will cost gas, but will cost considerably less than tons of failed transactions. Plus, your metamask won’t be stuck trying to mint something it is incapable of.
To do this, just send through another transaction on your Metamask with the exact same nonce number.
It is important to know that paying high transaction fees does not guarantee success. For instance, internet issues, website errors, or wallet issues could also delay your transaction. Ultimately, to win an NFT gas war, you must make sure the NFT you are planning to get is worth the expenditure. As always, do thorough research before making any investments.
All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFTevening.com are not recommendations.
This article is educational material.
As always, make your own research prior to making any kind of investment.
