gas fees
/ɡæs fiːz/
Very CommonTransaction fees paid to process operations on a blockchain network, especially Ethereum.
Almost universally complained about. High gas fees became a meme representing the friction of using blockchain at scale, and 'gas fees ate my profit' is a common frustration.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Tried to mint an NFT for 10 dollars and gas fees were 80 dollars. No thanks. | The transaction fee far exceeded the cost of the item being purchased. | x, 2021 |
| 02 | Gas fees on Ethereum during NFT season were genuinely unhinged. | Reflecting on how expensive ETH transactions became during peak NFT activity. | reddit, 2022 |
| 03 | Set an alarm to check gas fees at 3am. That is the crypto life. | Describing the routine of waiting for off-peak hours to reduce transaction costs. | x, 2022 |
| 04 | Moved to Solana specifically because ETH gas fees were killing every small trade. | Switching chains to avoid high transaction costs on Ethereum. | reddit, 2022 |
Use it when
- Complaining about the cost of executing a blockchain transaction.
- Explaining why a DeFi transaction was not worth doing.
- Comparing different blockchains by transaction costs.
Do not use it when
- You are talking about fees on a centralized exchange.Use “trading fees” instead.
- You mean general overhead or operating costs in a business context.
Origin and context
The concept of gas was introduced with Ethereum by Vitalik Buterin to separate computation cost from ETH price. The term 'gas fees' as a complaint became prominent during network congestion events in 2017 and exploded as a cultural grievance during the DeFi and NFT booms of 2020-2021.
- First seen
- 2015
- Confidence
- high
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/gas-feesUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0