Gas
Unit that measures the computational cost of executing operations on a blockchain such as Ethereum.
What is it? - Dummies
El gas It's like the digital gasoline what you need for something to work on the blockchain. If you want to send cryptocurrency or use a decentralized app, you have to pay a small amount of gas for the network to process it. Without gas, The operation is not executed. The more complicated the action, More gas do you need.
What is it? - PRO
Gas It's the unit of measure that determines the computational cost required to execute operations, transactions and smart contracts on Ethereum and other blockchains compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Each instruction or function in a smart contract consumes a specific amount of gas, and the total amount of gas required for an operation reflects how complex that action is from the point of view of processing and storage.
For a transaction to be processed on the network, the user must define:
- Gas Limit: the maximum amount of gas you are willing to spend.
- Gas price: the price per unit of gas, usually expressed in gwei (a fraction of ETH).
The total cost of a transaction is calculated as:gas used × gas price = commission in ETH
In Ethereum and its L2, this system performs several functions:
- Avoid misuse of computing resources (like infinite loops).
- Allows you to prioritize transactions depending on the price offered (greater incentive = faster).
- Reward validators or miners that process transactions.
- Adjust the internal economy of the network through mechanisms such as EIP-1559 (base fee + tip).
Gas can vary greatly depending on:
- The state of network congestion.
- The type of transaction (e.g. transferring ETH vs. minting an NFT).
- The blockchain used (e.g. Ethereum mainnet, Arbitrum, Polygon).
In L2 solutions, gas still exists but is usually much cheaper. In many cases, the end user is even abstracted.
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