provider.getGasPrice() Speed Estimations.

[aaronn]

Hey all– I'm trying to figure out how to modify or transform the value from provider.getGasPrice() to call the equivalent of a "Fast" transaction on the network. Is there any simple way of transforming this? I'm assuming provider.getGasPrice() will most often give something like an "Average" speed gas price.

[ricmoo]

There is actually no reliable way to get a gas price, for any speed. Everything is a very rough approximation, and each oracle and backend simply provides some guess based on their own heuristics, each with varying level of success.

If you want to create a service where you can derive your own heuristics, check out my gas ticker.

Otherwise you could try hitting the EthGasStation API directly, which would give you one of the more reliable and trusted services in the space.

Once EIP-1559 comes out, the estimates in general will be much more accurate and dial down the amount of approximation being relied on.

Sorry, this isn’t really a great answer, but it is still a fairly open field of research, with lots of interesting attempts at solving it, so that is the best answer I can suggest. :s