# Ethereum Gas Guzzlers: Contracts That Use the Most Gas

> Ethereum gas guzzlers ranked: the contracts that use the most gas over a day, week or month, internal calls included, with their share of block space and fees.

Markdown copy of https://voltfincrypto.com/apps/ethereum-gas-guzzlers

**Question:** Which contracts use the most gas on Ethereum, counting the calls they receive from other contracts?

- Kind: Table in Voltfin Strata
- Topic: [Ethereum](https://voltfincrypto.com/topics/ethereum)
- Chains: Ethereum
- Status: Planned. The data is not published yet, so this page states no figure; each figure will open its receipt when it is.

Gas measures the computation and storage a transaction uses, so the contracts that use the most gas are the ones taking up Ethereum's block space. This table ranks them over the last day, week and month by gas used: the units of work done, whatever price was paid for them.

It counts gas where it is spent. A swap through a router calls pools, tokens and other contracts, and each uses part of the gas, so the table credits every contract with its own share of each transaction's execution, from call traces. That shows which contracts do the work, not only which ones users call first. The ETH burn leaderboard, by contrast, ranks the ETH burned by the contract a transaction calls.

## Blueprint

One row: One row per contract per window: the last day, 7 days or 30 days, ending at a finalized block

- **Rank** (`rank`): Position in the window by gas used.
- **Contract** (`contract`): The contract gas is credited to, with its name where known.
- **App or protocol** (`app`): The app or protocol the contract belongs to, from the label registry.
- **Category** (`category`): Token, DEX pool, router, bridge, bot, NFT or other.
- **Window** (`window`): The last day, the last 7 days or the last 30 days.
- **Gas used** (`gas_used`, gas): Gas credited to the contract in the window, internal calls included.
- **Share of block space** (`share_of_gas`): The contract's gas as a share of all gas used in the window.
- **Called directly** (`direct_share`): The part of its gas from transactions that called it directly rather than through another contract.
- **Transactions** (`transactions`): Transactions in which the contract ran at least one call.
- **Fees paid** (`fees_paid`, ETH): Its gas-weighted share of the fees of those transactions.
- **Change** (`change_vs_prior`): Change in gas used against the previous window of the same length.
- **Receipt** (`receipt`): The blocks, traces and totals behind the row.

## How it will be measured

- Gas is attributed from call traces: each call frame's gas used, minus the gas used by the calls it makes, is credited to the contract running that frame.
- The intrinsic cost of each transaction, paid for the transaction itself and its calldata before execution, is credited to the contract the transaction calls directly.
- Share of block space is a contract's gas divided by all gas used in the window; windows are the last day, 7 days and 30 days ending at a finalized block.
- Fees paid are each contract's share of its transactions' fees in proportion to its gas, so the fees across all rows add up to the network total.

## Data it needs

- `chain_activity_daily` (to build): Transactions, active sending addresses, new addresses, contracts created and gas used on each chain per day, counted from blocks and transactions.
- `chain_fees_daily` (to build): Fees paid per chain per day in the native token: base fee and priority fee percentiles, total fees, and the share burned where the chain burns fees.
- `gas_blocks` (to build): Base fee, priority fee percentiles, gas used and gas limit for each block on fee-market chains, for a near-live gas tracker.
- `address_labels` (to build): Labels for known addresses: exchanges, bridges, protocols, funds, treasuries, sanctioned addresses and known attackers.
- Source: Call traces of Ethereum transactions, with the gas used by each call frame
- Source: Transaction receipts: gas used, effective gas price and the to address
- Source: Block headers: gas used and gas limit
- Source: Verified contract names and a reviewed label registry

## Questions

### What is a gas guzzler?

A contract that consumes a large share of Ethereum's gas, through heavy use, expensive operations or both. DEX pools, token contracts and bots are typical, and a single popular app or a spam campaign can climb to the top of the table quickly.

### Why include internal calls?

Most activity reaches contracts through other contracts: a router calls pools and a pool calls tokens. Counting only the contract a transaction calls directly would credit the router with work its pools and tokens did. Traces show where each unit of gas was spent.

### How is gas used different from ETH burned?

Gas used is the amount of work; ETH burned is that work times the base fee at the time. A contract that is busy at quiet hours uses a lot of gas but burns little. The burn leaderboard ranks by ETH burned and this table by gas, so the two can disagree.

### Why do token contracts rank so high?

Every transfer of a popular token runs that token's contract to update balances, whichever app started the trade. Stablecoins and major tokens therefore use a lot of gas in total, even though each single transfer is cheap.

### Does a higher gas limit change these rankings?

A higher gas limit adds block space but does not change who uses it. Shares in the table are relative to all gas used in the window, so a larger limit shows up as more total gas rather than as a jump in one contract's share.

## Glossary

- **Call trace**: A record of every call a transaction makes between contracts, with the gas each call used.
- **Intrinsic gas**: The gas every transaction pays before execution begins, for the transaction itself and its data.
- **Block space**: The gas a block can hold up to its gas limit, which every transaction competes for.

## Related apps

- [ETH Burn Leaderboard: Top Contracts by ETH Burned](https://voltfincrypto.com/apps/eth-burn-leaderboard)
- [Ethereum Gas Limit Tracker: Block Gas Limit Over Time](https://voltfincrypto.com/apps/ethereum-gas-limit)
- [Ethereum Gas Tracker](https://voltfincrypto.com/apps/ethereum-gas-tracker)
- [Ethereum Daily Transactions and Active Addresses](https://voltfincrypto.com/apps/ethereum-daily-transactions)
- [ETH Transaction Fees by Action: Transfer, Swap, Bridge](https://voltfincrypto.com/apps/eth-transaction-fee-by-action)
- [ETH Supply Tracker: Burn vs Issuance](https://voltfincrypto.com/apps/eth-supply-burn-vs-issuance)

Build it in Voltfin Studio: https://app.voltfincrypto.com/signup?next=%2F