The gas fee is fundamental in blockchains like Ethereum, but its nature and volatility can be mysterious. Here I provide an explanation that I hope you find useful.
* The Gas Fee is not just a "Fee", it's an Invisible Auction Market
The gas fee is not simply a fixed cost; it is the price you pay to "rent" the computational power of a decentralized network. Think of it as a real-time auction where thousands of users compete for their transactions to be included in the next block.
Gas = Unit of computational effort: Each operation on the blockchain (transferring tokens, interacting with a smart contract, etc.) requires a certain amount of "gas" (work unit).
Gas price = Price per unit of gas: You decide this (like in a bidding), but if you offer too little, miners (or validators) will ignore your transaction.
* Why Does it Vary So Much?
The volatility of the gas fee is not random; it responds to complex dynamics:
Competition for Block Space
- Each block has a gas limit (e.g., Ethereum 30 million gas per block).
- If there are 50,000 competing transactions, only those that pay more will go through (like buying tickets on a resale).
"FOMO" Effect on Miners' Memory
- When there is an NFT launch, an exploit in DeFi, or a meme coin trending, users panic and raise their gas fees to prioritize their transactions.
- Miners (who earn more with high fees) order transactions by profit, not by arrival order.
* The "Bots" and the Frontrunners
- In DeFi, bots spy on pending transactions and copy them with a higher fee to get ahead (this is called frontrunning). This drives up prices.
Example: If you see that you are going to buy a new token, a bot can send the same transaction before you, paying more gas. * The Architecture of Ethereum: A Deliberate Bottleneck
- Ethereum (before ETH 2.0) processed ~15 transactions per second (vs. Visa: ~24,000). This intentional design (for decentralization) creates artificial scarcity.
- The more users, the more expensive the gas.
* Solutions
- "Flashbots" Transactions: Allow sending transactions outside of the mempool (avoiding bots).
- L2s like Arbitrum or Optimism: Use "rollups" to compress thousands of transactions into one on Ethereum (gas fees 100x lower).
- EIP-1559 (ETH Burn): Since 2021, Ethereum burns part of the gas fee, reducing the supply of ETH and creating deflationary pressures (but it doesn't always lower the price).
To conclude
It's not a "mistake" or a "technical failure"; it's a reflection of a living ecosystem where decentralization, speculation, and the law of the richest (or fastest) collide. If you want to pay less, learn to use low-demand hours (early morning UTC). #gas #gasfee #aprender $BNB $XRP
