Gas
Last updated 17 October 2026Last verified 17 October 2026
What is gas in Ethereum?
The unit of computational work on Ethereum. Users pay gas fees in ETH; the base fee is burned entirely (reducing ETH supply), and validators capture the priority tip plus any MEV they negotiate with block builders. High gas correlates with network congestion. Layer 2 networks reduce gas costs by orders of magnitude by batching transactions and posting data and proofs to the base layer rather than executing every transaction on it.
TradFi equivalentA per-transaction clearing fee priced by congestion rather than by schedule. Because the base fee adjusts algorithmically with congestion and the tip is bid for inclusion, the cost is not known when the instruction is given.