What is Ethereum Gas and how does it work?

When we are apprentices of the Cryptocurrency ecosystem it is normal to learn basic and common concepts within the market, many enthusiasts start out of simple curiosity and others decide to learn in order to make investments in Crypto in a conscious and responsible way.

As we learn more and more about these concepts, it is inevitable to realize how the Cryptocurrency market works, but we also realize that there are many other deeper concepts that border on the most technical fundamentals and that sometimes it is necessary to already have some skills, be in mathematics or computer science to understand them, luckily the concept that we will explain below is a mixture of both.

The Ethereum Gas is perhaps one of unique concepts of a currency that many do not even know exists, as a good connoisseurs of the Crypto ecosystem we know that there is the Ethereum Blockchain network whose native Cryptocurrency is called or is known as Ether, but within the bowels of this network we can find something that is not a Cryptocurrency, nor a token, but that simulates an internal monetary unit. Ethereum Gas is a unit of measurement that is used to know how much it costs us to execute a process within the Ethereum network.

Technically speaking, gas is a unit used internally by the system, which is used to measure the effort in computing work of the transactions that enter the Ethereum network or the smart contracts that are executed by the miners on their own to maintain the network in operation.

Why is Gas necessary on the Ethereum network?

This unit of measurement is absolutely necessary in a network as complex as the Ethereum Blockchain. Let’s remember that this Cryptocurrency was one of the first to implement its own programming language that allows it to create a wide catalog of new features such as smart contracts and Dapps (decentralized apps) in essence, what is sought with the gas unit is to separate the cost of the computing effort in the different functionalities from the cost of Ether in the Ethereum network.

In a certain way, gas does not have a fixed value since this is responsible for determining the cost of a transaction within the Ethereum network and, like Bitcoin, sometimes this network can be congested, therefore the cost of a transaction changes; There are models such as Bitcoin where the creation of a block depends on the amount of information that is stored, that is to say that in Bitcoin the value of a transaction is directly related to the space it occupies in a block, while in Ethereum it is a little different since the value of a transaction is directly related to the amount of gas that must be used to be executed and this amount takes into account how complex the execution is and the computing power that is required to validate said transaction.

Use of Gas on Ethereum

Perhaps many are already understanding more about what the gas on Ethereum is about, and at first glance it is very easy to assimilate, but, the more we know, the more complex it looks, and at MegaAcademy we will explain in a simple way how gas works in the Ethereum network.

To make this explanation simpler, we will make an allegory of a trip in any vehicle. We all know that to be able to ride in a vehicle, be it a car, an airplane or a ship, it is necessary that said device has fuel, in this case Ethereum gas is the fuel we need to use to make the car run, but how do we know how much fuel is needed to make the trip? 

This is where it is a little easier, since, just as we calculate the distance and fuel consumption of our car in real life to know how much fuel we will use, in Ethereum the system already has a Gas cost established for each transaction or service within the network and in this way we can estimate how much gas we will use in any type of transaction.

Now knowing how much fuel or gas we must use to reach our destination, it is necessary to buy said gas, and this is where the real cost may vary, since to buy said gas it is necessary that it be purchased with Ether and the price depends on the congestion of the net, setting the price a miner is willing to accept for said transaction.

Something that we must emphasize is that in Ethereum transactions errors can occur due to gas. Going back to the analogy of the trip, it is as if with a few kilometers to go we run out of fuel, in Ethereum if we miscalculate the gas that we will need for a transaction it is likely that said transaction does not reach its destination and therefore ends in error, which is why most users deliver a little more than what was calculated as a precaution.

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Nowhere, since Ethereum Gas is not considered an extra Token to Ether, however it is used internally within the Ethereum network as a unit of measure for different processes (Transactions, Contract Execution, Dapps, among others) and this is reflected in a monetary way through Ether.

The miners collect their commissions in Ether, let’s remember that one of the functions of the Gas is to serve as a unit of measure that measures the value of the computing power being used in an Ethereum transaction or service.

Today it is estimated that 1 block of the Ethereum network holds approximately 8 million units of Gas, however, this amount is not always used in most blocks.

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