Gwei

Gwei is short for gigawei, meaning one billion wei. One gwei equals 0.000000001 ETH, and one ETH equals 1 billion gwei. Gas prices are quoted in gwei because the raw numbers in wei would be unwieldy and the numbers in ETH would have too many leading zeros. A gas price of 30 gwei is easier to read than 0.00000003 ETH.

Typical gas prices have varied widely. During calm periods in 2024 and 2025 the base fee often sat below 10 gwei and sometimes below 1 gwei, while in the 2021 peak it regularly exceeded 100 gwei and spiked into the thousands during popular NFT mints. Wallets and sites like Etherscan show the current gas price in gwei so users can decide whether to transact now or wait.

To estimate a fee in dollars, multiply gas used by gas price in gwei, divide by 1 billion to get ETH, then multiply by the ETH price. A 50,000 gas transaction at 25 gwei is 1.25 million gwei, which is 0.00125 ETH, or about 3.75 dollars when ETH is 3,000 dollars.