Gas Fees

Every action on a network like Ethereum — sending coins, swapping tokens, using a DeFi app — requires 'gas,' a fee paid to the network for the computing work of processing it. Gas fees rise and fall with demand: the same transaction might cost cents when the network is quiet and much more when it's congested, the way a toll road charges more at rush hour.

Gas fees compensate the validators (or miners, on proof-of-work networks) who dedicate computing resources to execute and record transactions. Fees are typically priced per unit of computation, and users can often set how much they're willing to pay — a higher bid tends to be processed faster during congestion, a lower one may wait or fail. Complex operations, like interacting with a smart contract, cost more gas than a simple transfer because they require more computation to verify. Typical fee levels vary enormously across networks: some blockchains and newer layer-2 scaling networks are designed to keep fees low, while others can spike sharply during periods of high demand. Gas is generally non-refundable even if a transaction fails, which is a distinct risk from the price risk of holding the asset itself.