Ethereum gas fees are the cost of executing a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. Transactions on the Ethereum blockchain are executed by so-called miners, who use their computing power to validate transactions and add them to the blockchain.
In return for their work, miners are rewarded with Ethereum’s native currency, ether.
When a user wants to execute a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain, they must first specify a gas limit. This is the maximum amount of gas that they are willing to spend on the transaction.
The higher the gas limit, the more work the miner must do to validate the transaction, and so the higher the fee they will charge.
The actual fee that a user pays is calculated as a proportion of the gas limit. For example, if a user sets a gas limit of 10 and the fee charged by the miner is 1 ether, then the user will pay a fee of 0.
1 ether.
The reason that users must specify a gas limit is to prevent so-called “spam” transactions from clogging up the network. If there were no limit on how much gas could be spent on a transaction, then malicious users could create very expensive transactions that would be difficult for miners to validate.
By limiting the amount of gas that can be spent on a transaction, users can ensure that only transactions that are actually worth processing are included in the blockchain.
One final point to note about Ethereum gas fees is that they are not paid to Ethereum itself, but to the miners who validate transactions and add them to the blockchain. This is different from how most other cryptocurrencies work, where transaction fees are paid to the network (e.g.
Bitcoin) or to a centralised organisation (e.g. Ripple).
In conclusion, Ethereum gas fees are paid by users in order to have their transactions processed by miners. The fees are calculated as a proportion of the gas limit, which is set by the user when they create their transaction.
Gas fees help to prevent spam transactions from clogging up the network and also go towards rewarding miners for their work in validating transactions and adding them to the blockchain.