The blockchain can't hide its excitement
1 · Gas = demand
Gas is the toll for using Ethereum. It's set by pure supply & demand: more people transacting → higher fees. It can't be faked or wished higher.
2 · Fees move in tides
In manias, people pay $28+ per transaction. In despair, the same transfer costs a fraction of a cent. That swing is the tide — and it tracks the market cycle.
3 · Turns mark the cycle
When the tide turns out from a high, manias are ending. When it comes back in from a low, the crowd is quietly returning. Those turns are the signal.
Every call since 2017, on one chart
ETH's full price history with every ▲ BUY and ▼ SELL the Gas Tide signal produced — computed only from gas-fee data available at the time, no hindsight. Shaded bands show when the tide was unusually high (euphoria) or low (apathy).
ETH price · Gas Tide buy & sell calls
The Gas Tide oscillator
Eleven years of gas, two ways to measure it
The same fee, in crypto terms (gwei — Ethereum's internal unit for gas) and in dollars (what a simple ETH transfer actually cost that day). Note the dotted markers: upgrades like the L2 era and the Dencun update structurally crushed fees — which is why Gas Tide measures fees relative to their own recent past, not in absolute terms.
Gas price (gwei) & cost of a simple transfer (USD)
ETH price, full history
Did it actually work?
Two independent tests. First: what happened to ETH after high-tide and low-tide days — across all 3,900+ days of history. Second: the literal trade list — follow every call with no discretion, switching between ETH and cash.
Median ETH return after a day in each tide zone vs. all days baseline. High-tide days led the biggest gains — euphoria means the bull run is on (the danger is when the tide then turns). Low-tide days led the weakest returns until the tide turned back in.
Following the tide vs. just holding
Every trade the signal produced
| # | Bought | at | Sold | at | Return | Note |
|---|
The two formulas
Both work on one number: the daily average fee of a simple ETH transfer, in dollars (average gas price × 21,000 gas × ETH price). Both look only backward — nothing in the math peeks at the future.
1 · Tide Level — "how high is the water?"
Asks: are fees unusually expensive or unusually cheap compared to the last year? Above +1.5 = euphoria (high tide). Below −1.25 = apathy (low tide). Using a rolling yardstick is what keeps it honest across eras — 60 gwei was euphoric in 2024, while 5 gwei was euphoric in late 2025.
2 · Tide Momentum — "which way is it flowing?"
The derivative — is fee pressure building or draining, regardless of its level? This is what caught the August 2025 top: fees were low by 2021 standards, but they had quadrupled in four months. Direction mattered, not altitude.
The Gas Tide signal = (LEVEL + MOMENTUM) ÷ 2
The average of the two, with a neutral band in the middle so it doesn't flip-flop. Crossing up through the band = tide coming in (buy). Crossing down = tide going out (sell). That's the entire system — two thresholds, no exceptions, no overrides.
⚖️ What this is not — read before believing
- Few cycles. Ethereum has had ~5 major cycles. Any backtest on 5 cycles can flatter itself. The forward-return tables (3,900+ days) are the more robust evidence; the trade list is the more impressive one.
- Threshold sensitivity. The ±0.25 band was chosen by backtest. Nearby values still produce sensible calls at similar dates, but the headline multiple moves around. Treat the exact ×941 as illustrative, not a promise.
- Structural change. Rollups and the Dencun upgrade permanently lowered fees. The rolling z-scores adapt within ~a year, but a future fee-market redesign could blind the indicator for a while.
- Known misses. It was ~3 months early selling the 2021 double-top (sold the May mania, re-bought, took a small loss on the November chop), and panic crashes (COVID, March 2020) spike fees during the fall — the tide called the re-entry beautifully but not the crash itself.
- Not financial advice. This is a public experiment in reading on-chain data. Do your own research.