What is Gas? Why does the price fluctuate?

If you are using Ethereum as your preferred blockchain while listing your NFTs, then ‘Gas’ is the fee that Ethereum as a blockchain platform charges for conducting successful transactions. This fee is charged for the miners who make it possible to carry on with the transactions smoothly on the blockchain. It is important to note here that NFTically does not have any share in this fee.

For successfully conducting any type of transaction on Ethereum, such as for minting an NFT, or for an auction listing, and much more, you need to have some ETH in your wallet. 

Another crucial property of the Gas fee is that it is highly dynamic in nature. It is not a set fee that will be charged on a fixed basis, rather it fluctuates with the volume of transactions happening on the blockchain at a given point in time. However, developers worldwide are on a mission to keep the Gas fee as reasonably down as possible. 

There are two important factors that determine the Gas of any transaction – first, the volume of transactions taking place at a particular time, and second, how fast a user wants their transaction to be completed. 

While minting your NFTs, if you find the Gas to be higher than normal, it is advisable to wait until the fee comes down. Another way to go about it, is to lock in your ideal price and wait till further processing. You can also check ethgasstation.info out for more clarification on Gas and its related aspects. 

Check out some interesting features of Gas fee:

• As discussed previously, Gas fee is not stable in nature, it fluctuates owing to different factors. One such factor is the level of congestion on the network. If Ethereum experiences high transaction volume, then the Gas fee is likely to be on the higher side. It is all a game of demand and supply. If the transaction volume is high then miners are incentivised accordingly with a high fee and vice versa. This is how the world of blockchain works.

• That being said, we should not overlook the bright side of this amazing technology. It comes with great benefits like transparency and flexibility. Therefore, whenever you are asked to pay up the Gas fee, you are always being offered with an exceptional choice of moving ahead with the stated fee or not.When you proceed ahead with any transaction, your wallet prompts three choices, which then enable you to choose your speed and price accordingly. In case you opt for the lowest bid of price, then your transaction will take the longest to be completed, and the chances are that it might get dropped also.

• In case you have initially opted for the lower fee, and later want your transaction to be processed fast, you can anytime speed it up by paying an additional fee. When your transaction is under process, your wallet will reflect an option – Speed Up, which upon hitting will speed up the process on receiving the required additional charge.