sha256

Question

How is the sha256 precompile used on mainnet and what input sizes are most common?

Background

sha256 (0x02) computes the SHA-256 hash of its input. The gas cost scales with input size: 60 base gas + 12 gas per 32-byte word of input.

Over the analysis period, sha256 was called 10.5 million times, consuming 931 million gas. It's #4 by call volume but only 0.5% of precompile gas — individual calls are cheap (avg 89 gas, implying small inputs).

Investigation

Gas distribution

Gas scales with input size, so the distribution shows what input sizes are most common.

Top callers

Note: The callers data below covers a smaller window (~6,000 blocks) because the self-join query needed to resolve parent contracts is too expensive to run over the full range. The gas distribution above uses the full 426K-block range.

Takeaways

• sha256 is #4 by call count (10.5M calls) but only 0.5% of precompile gas
• Average gas per call is 89, meaning most inputs are small (1-2 words)