Got Gas?

What are gas fees?

If you have ever minted, sold, or purchased an NFT, then you may be all too familiar with gas fees. This is a fee that is required anytime data is written to the Ethereum blockchain. Gas fees are paid by users (like you and I) to compensate miners for the resources required to process and validate blockchain transactions.

Every transaction that occurs on the blockchain requires computational effort which is provided by miners. Miners are people who use expensive computer resources to process transactions and store the blockchain. In return, miners receive gas fees (ETHEREUM) as compensation.

The amount of gas you’ll pay depends on the complexity of the task you’re doing on the Ethereum blockchain. That is why minting an NFT is more expensive than transferring it.

The price of gas fluctuates based on demand for writing to the blockchain. Because the number of transactions that Ethereum can handle is limited, users must offer to pay a higher gas price to have their transactions mined quickly.

Why do gas fees exist?

The main reason the Ethereum blockchain requires gas fees on every transaction relates to security. Because users are required to pay a fee, bad actors are prevented from spamming the network because there is a financial penalty for doing so.