Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin documented the continued need to improve the namesake network to better facilitate ETH as a means of payment. In one instance, Buterin shared how he tried to pay for tea for himself and friends at a coffee shop in Argentina in 2021, but had to pay 0.01 ETH (around $40 at the time) as that was the minimum deposit for the owner's exchange account. "I did not mind the 3x overpayment and treated it as a tip," the co-founder wrote. 

As told by Buterin, outliers nevertheless remain on the Ethereum network despite recent improvements. "If you send a transaction at the same time as when many others are sending transactions and the base fee is spiking up, you risk the base fee going too high and your transaction not getting accepted," he wrote. "Even worse, wallet UIs suck at showing this. There are no big red flashing alerts, and very little clear indication of what you're supposed to do to solve this problem." Buterin added that even experts can be confused at how to speed up transactions in such cases.