ripemd160

Question

Is anyone still using the ripemd160 precompile?

Background

ripemd160 (0x03) computes the RIPEMD-160 hash, originally included in the EVM because Bitcoin uses it for address derivation. Gas cost: 600 base + 120 per 32-byte word.

With only 233 calls over the entire analysis period (~426K blocks), ripemd160 is the least-used precompile by a wide margin. It's essentially dead — whatever contracts call it, they do so very rarely.

Investigation

With only 233 calls across ~60 days, there's not enough activity to produce meaningful charts. A ~6,000 block sample window found zero ripemd160 calls, which tells you everything about how rarely this precompile gets used.

For context, ripemd160 averages about 4 calls per day across the entire network.

Takeaways

• ripemd160 is effectively dead: 233 calls over ~60 days
• Originally included for Bitcoin address compatibility, but that use case never materialized on Ethereum
• A strong candidate for deprecation discussions in future hard forks