CoinucationGas Fee
A gas fee is the total cost in ETH to execute a transaction, calculated as gas used times the gas price in effect at that moment.
The gas fee is what a user pays for a transaction on Ethereum. It is gas used multiplied by gas price. If a transfer uses 21,000 gas and the gas price is 20 gwei, the fee is 420,000 gwei, which is 0.00042 ETH. At an ETH price of 3,000 dollars that is about 1.26 dollars. The same transfer at 200 gwei during a busy period would cost about 12.60 dollars.
Since the EIP-1559 upgrade in August 2021, the gas price has two parts. The base fee is set by the protocol and adjusts up or down each block depending on how full the previous block was. It is burned rather than paid to anyone. The priority fee, or tip, goes to the validator and lets users pay extra to be included faster.
Gas fees are the main reason Ethereum can feel expensive. They do not depend on the dollar value of the transaction, only on its complexity and the current demand. Layer 2 networks such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base bundle thousands of transactions and post them to Ethereum together, which brings typical fees down to a few cents.
What are gas fees? covers this in 6 minutes, with a quiz at the end.