What Are Gas Fees? Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin Compared

A gas fee is the charge for getting a payment processed on a blockchain, a shared record book that many computers keep in step. Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin all charge one, but each prices it differently. In our samples to 8 November 2026, a plain Ethereum transfer and the median Solana and Bitcoin transactions each cost less than one-thousandth of 1% of one coin.

We state each fee in the network's own coin: ether on Ethereum, SOL on Solana, and Bitcoin on Bitcoin. SOL is Solana's coin. Turning a coin amount into dollars needs the coin's price. The network records we read hold no prices. We use postage to explain how each network prices a payment.

A transaction is an instruction sent to a blockchain, such as moving coins from one person to another. Many computers check each instruction and record it. The fee pays those computers.

Ethereum calls the fee a gas fee. Gas is the unit that measures how much computing work a transaction needs. The fee equals the gas used multiplied by the price of one unit of gas, according to ethereum.org.

Think of posting a parcel. The price depends on its weight and size, never on what is inside. A standard stamp covers the standard service. An express surcharge gets it on the first van out.

Ethereum quotes the price of one unit of gas in gwei. One gwei is one-billionth of an ether.

A plain transfer of ether needs 21,000 units of gas. A smart contract, a program stored on the network, needs more. The fee follows the work done, never the amount sent.

The price of each unit has two parts. The base fee is set by the network and applies to every transaction in a block, a batch of transactions added to the record book. Our 24-hour window held 7,200 blocks, one every 12 seconds.

The priority tip is an extra payment that gets a transaction picked sooner. It goes to the validator, a computer that checks transactions and adds them to the record. The base fee is the standard stamp and the tip is the express surcharge.

The base fee moves with demand. It rises by up to 12.5% for the next block after a block more than half full. It falls by up to 12.5% after one less than half full. The network burns the base fee, which destroys those coins so that fewer exist.

We report medians throughout. A median is the middle value, so half the readings fall below it and half above.

Chart 1 shows the median base fee for each hour of the window. Every hourly median stayed between 0.034 gwei and 0.067 gwei. Across all 7,200 blocks, the median was 0.044 gwei. Individual blocks ranged from 0.027 gwei to 1.066 gwei, so the highest single block charged 24 times the median.

The median tip was 0.005 gwei.

For one plain transfer, 0.044 gwei times 21,000 units is about 925 gwei, because the unrounded median was 0.04406 gwei. The tip adds 0.005 gwei times 21,000 units, which is 105 gwei. Together they come to 1,030 gwei.

Solana charges a base fee of 5,000 lamports for each signature, according to its documentation. A signature is a code that proves the owner of the coins approved the payment. A lamport is one-billionth of a SOL, so 5,000 lamports is 0.000005 SOL.

The sender can add a priority fee. It equals a price per compute unit, Solana's measure of computing work, multiplied by the units requested. The default price is zero.

Half of the base fee is burned and half goes to the validator. The whole priority fee goes to the validator.

Our sample covered 3,134 transactions in 12 blocks, from 20:50 UTC on 7 November to 08:38 UTC on 8 November. UTC is Coordinated Universal Time. We left out the routine vote messages that validators send to each other.

Every transaction paid at least 5,000 lamports for each signature. 30.7% paid exactly 5,000. Another 67.1% paid a priority fee on top, with a median extra of 1,000 lamports. Those small extras put the median fee of 5,192 lamports just above the base fee.

Bitcoin has no gas. A Bitcoin transaction carries no fee field. The fee is what remains when the coins a transaction sends out are subtracted from the coins it takes in. The miner who adds the transaction to a block keeps it.

A miner does the same job on Bitcoin that a validator does on Ethereum. It is a computer that checks transactions and adds them to the record, in a new block about every ten minutes.

A satoshi is the smallest unit of Bitcoin. One Bitcoin equals 100,000,000 satoshis. A vbyte is Bitcoin's unit of transaction size. A bigger transaction takes more vbytes and pays more, according to the Bitcoin developer guide.

Senders bid a price in satoshis for each vbyte, because block space is limited.

Chart 2 splits our sample of 57,780 transactions, from 12 blocks between 08:32 UTC on 7 November and 07:42 UTC on 8 November, by the price paid. Each bar groups transactions by satoshis paid for each vbyte. A lower price means a cheaper fee. 65.8% paid under 1 satoshi per vbyte, while 544 transactions, 0.9%, paid 10 or more.

The median transaction took up 125 vbytes and paid 14 satoshis in total. That is 0.112 satoshis per vbyte, which is why the middle of the sample sits under 1. The 90th percentile, the level that 90% of transactions paid at or below, was 3.11 satoshis per vbyte.

In 6 of the 12 blocks, the median transaction paid under 1 satoshi per vbyte. Those 6 held 5,818 to 7,604 transactions each, against 2,344 to 3,929 in the other 6. They hold 70% of the sampled transactions, so the cheap blocks weigh most in the 65.8%.

The table shows how each network prices a fee and what a transaction in our sample paid, in the network's own coin.

Each fee is in the network's own coin. A signature is a code that proves the sender approved the payment. A vbyte is Bitcoin's unit of transaction size. Ethereum's figure uses the median base fee plus the median tip. The Solana and Bitcoin samples are 12 blocks each. Source: Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin network records, YX Insights calculation

A plain Ethereum transfer at the median prices cost 1,030 gwei. The median Solana transaction paid 5,192 lamports and the median Bitcoin transaction 14 satoshis. The units differ, so we compare each fee with one whole coin.

Ethereum's fee was 0.0001% of one ether. Solana's was 0.0005% of one SOL. Bitcoin's was 0.00001% of one Bitcoin. All three are under one-thousandth of 1%, so each fee was small relative to its coin.

Fees also move within a network. Ethereum's highest single block charged 24 times its median base fee, because the base fee rises after busy blocks. Bitcoin's 90th percentile price was 28 times its median.

Our guide to Bitcoin vs Ethereum vs Solana compares the three as assets. Our explainers on what Ethereum is and what Bitcoin is cover how each works.

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Crypto transactions cost a fee because the computers that check and record each one are paid for that work. On Ethereum, the tip goes to the validator and the base fee is burned. On Solana, half the base fee is burned. On Bitcoin, the miner keeps the whole fee.

Gwei is the unit that quotes the price of gas on Ethereum. One gwei equals one-billionth of an ether. A plain transfer needs 21,000 units of gas, so a price of 10 gwei for each unit gives a fee of 210,000 gwei, which is 0.00021 ether, before any tip.

Yes. Ethereum charges the gas a failed transaction already used, according to ethereum.org. Solana's documentation says its fee is charged whether a transaction succeeds or fails. On Ethereum, only the gas that went unused is refunded to the sender, so a failed attempt still costs money.

Bitcoin has no gas. It charges a fee based on the transaction's size in vbytes. Senders bid a price in satoshis for each vbyte. The miner who adds the transaction to a block keeps the fee. In our sample of 57,780 transactions, the median paid 14 satoshis.

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended for educational purposes only. Any information or analysis in this note does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. Nothing in this note is intended to be investment advice, nor should it be relied upon to make investment decisions. Any opinions, analyses, or probabilities expressed in this note are those of the author as of the note's date of publication and are subject to change without notice.