Gas Fee

A gas fee is what you pay a blockchain network to process your transaction. "Gas" measures the computing work a transaction requires - a simple transfer uses little; running a complex smart contract uses more - and the fee is that amount of work multiplied by the current price per unit, paid in the network's native currency.

On Ethereum, gas is paid in ETH. The total fee rises and falls with demand: when many people transact at once, the price per unit of gas climbs, so the same action can cost cents at a quiet hour and several dollars when the network is congested. You are paying for block space, which is scarce.

Gas exists for two reasons. It compensates the validators who run and store the computation, and it prevents spam - because every operation costs something, flooding the network with junk transactions is expensive.

For real-world assets, gas is the reason network choice matters. A $50,000 purchase can absorb a few dollars of fee, but collecting a $20 distribution or buying a small fractional share cannot. This is why many RWA products run on a layer 2 such as Base, where fees are typically a fraction of a cent to a few cents.

A few practical notes: wallets estimate the fee before you confirm, so there are no surprise charges; a failed transaction can still cost gas, because the network did the work of trying; and you always need a small amount of the native currency on hand to pay fees, even when you are mainly moving stablecoins or tokens.

Source: Ethereum docs (ethereum.org), as of 2026.