EIP-1559: Fee Market Change
EIP-1559 is how Ethereum gas fees work since London fork (2021). Required knowledge for estimating transaction costs, building gas estimation into apps, and understanding ETH supply.
What It Defines
Reformed Ethereum's transaction fee mechanism: replaces single gas price auction with base fee (burned) + priority fee (tip). Base fee adjusts algorithmically each block based on demand. Introduced transaction type 2.
Canonical (Normative)
Convenient (Practical)
The Ethereum community's open process for proposing changes to the protocol. EIPs cover core protocol changes; ERCs (Ethereum Request for Comments) cover application-layer standards like token interfaces.
Related Specs
All Ethereum JSON-RPC APIs (Infura, Alchemy, local nodes, MetaMask) use JSON-RPC 2.0. You need to know the protocol to interact with EVM chains.
Understanding EIP-1 gives you the map for reading all other EIPs. Know which type a given EIP is (Core, Networking, Interface, ERC) and what Final vs Draft status means.