Glossary
EIP-1559
Ethereum's 2021 fee-market overhaul: a burned base fee that adjusts per block plus an optional tip to the proposer, replacing the prior auction-style fee market.
Before EIP-1559, users had to guess a gas price; underpaying meant their transaction sat in the mempool, overpaying meant they overpaid. EIP-1559 has the protocol set a base fee that targets ~50% block utilization, doubling when blocks are full and halving when empty.
The base fee is burned, not paid to any party — which permanently removes ETH from circulation, and is what made ETH net-deflationary in periods of heavy demand. Users still tip the proposer on top of the base fee to incentivize fast inclusion.