Tokens

Gwei

A denomination of ether equal to one billionth, used to quote Ethereum gas prices in readable numbers.

Gwei is a convenience unit. One ether divides into a billion gwei, and one gwei divides into another billion wei, the smallest unit there is. Gas prices are quoted in gwei because the raw figure in ether would be a tiny string of zeros. 'Gas is 25 gwei' beats '0.000000025 ETH.'

When people complain that gas is high, they mean gwei is high. Quiet periods see single-digit gwei. A hot NFT mint or a market crash can push it past 100. Wallets like MetaMask let you set a gwei price by hand, trading speed against cost.

Related terms

Gas

A unit measuring the computational work an Ethereum operation requires, from a simple transfer to a complex contract call.

Gas Fee

The total cost to run an Ethereum transaction, found by multiplying the gas used by the price per unit.

Satoshi

The smallest unit of bitcoin, equal to one hundred-millionth of a single coin.

Transaction Fee

Paid to the network for processing a transfer, this charge rises and falls with how busy the chain is.

All terms