What is gas?
The fee paid to have a transaction processed on Ethereum and similar networks, priced according to how much computation it requires.
Every operation has a gas cost, and you pay for what you use. Since EIP-1559 the fee has a protocol-set base fee that is destroyed, plus a priority fee that goes to the validator as a tip for faster inclusion. A simple transfer uses 21,000 gas; a swap uses several times more. Check current levels on our gas tracker.
Why it matters: gas is the practical limit on what is worth doing on-chain. When the network is congested, small transactions stop making economic sense, which is the entire reason layer-2 networks exist.
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