Ethereum Raw Transaction Patterns (2026)

1. Transaction Types (Protocol Level)

Type 0 — Legacy Transaction

Standard before EIP-1559.

EIPs: EIP-155

Fields

nonce
gasPrice
gasLimit
to
value
data
v
r
s

Notes

• Uses gasPrice
• No fee market
• Mostly deprecated but still valid

---

Type 1 — Access List Transaction

EIPs: EIP-2930

Fields

chainId
nonce
gasPrice
gasLimit
to
value
data
accessList
v
r
s

Notes

• Optional access list
• Gas optimization
• Rarely used in practice

---

Type 2 — EIP-1559 Transaction (Standard)

EIPs: EIP-1559

Fields

chainId
nonce
maxPriorityFeePerGas
maxFeePerGas
gasLimit
to
value
data
accessList
v
r
s

Notes

• Current default transaction type
• Uses dynamic fee market
• Recommended for most applications

---

Type 3 — Blob Transaction

EIPs: EIP-4844

Fields

chainId
nonce
maxPriorityFeePerGas
maxFeePerGas
gasLimit
to
value
data
accessList

maxFeePerBlobGas
blobVersionedHashes

v
r
s

External blob data

blobs
commitments
proofs

Notes

• Designed for rollup data availability

• Used by L2 networks such as

  • Optimism
  • Arbitrum
  • Base

---

Future / Emerging

Example

• EIP-7702

Purpose

• Account abstraction
• Temporary code execution for EOAs

---

2. Transaction Intent Patterns (Application Level)

These patterns exist regardless of transaction type.

---

ETH Transfer

Simple native token transfer.

Pattern

to = recipient
value > 0
data = empty

Used for

wallet transfer
exchange withdrawal
payment

---

Smart Contract Call

Invoke contract method.

Pattern

to = contract address
data = ABI encoded function call
value = optional

Examples

DEX swap
NFT mint
DeFi interaction

---

Contract Deployment

Deploy new smart contract.

Pattern

to = null
data = contract bytecode + constructor args
value = optional

---

ERC-20 Token Transfer

Token transfer using contract.

Example contract standard

• ERC-20

Pattern

to = token contract
data = transfer(address,uint256)
value = 0

---

ERC-721 / NFT Transfer

NFT transfer.

Standard

• ERC-721

Pattern

to = NFT contract
data = safeTransferFrom(...)
value = 0

---

3. Summary Matrix

Category	Pattern	Typical Type
ETH transfer	send ETH	Type 2
Contract call	DeFi / swap	Type 2
Contract deploy	deploy bytecode	Type 2
ERC20 transfer	token transfer	Type 2
NFT transfer	ERC721 transfer	Type 2
Rollup blob	L2 data publish	Type 3

---

4. Minimal Patterns AI Agents Should Understand

If building wallet / signing infrastructure for Ethereum, the minimal required patterns are:

1. ETH transfer
2. ERC20 transfer
3. Contract call
4. Contract deployment
5. Blob transaction (L2)

Transaction type support

Type 2 (EIP-1559)  ← default
Type 3 (Blob)      ← L2 support