Gas
Gas is the unit measuring the computational effort required to execute operations on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Every operation (ADD, SSTORE, CALL, etc.) has a fixed gas cost defined by the protocol. Users specify a gas price (the amount of ETH they pay per unit of gas), and the transaction fee is gas_used * gas_price. Under EIP-1559, the gas fee has two components: a base fee (burned, algorithmically adjusted per block to target 50% capacity) and a priority fee (tip to the proposer for inclusion priority). Gas economics drive MEV dynamics: during high congestion, priority fees spike as searchers and arbitrageurs compete for inclusion, and the base fee adjusts upward, making execution more expensive. Gas analysis reveals on-chain activity patterns — spikes in gas prices often precede volatility events, and sustained elevated base fees signal persistent network demand. Layer 2 rollups reduce gas costs by batching transactions and posting compressed data to L1.