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Gas
Gas refers to the unit of measurement used to calculate the fees required to execute a transaction on the blockchain. Gas is a concept specific to the Ethereum blockchain.
In order to stop spam and other forms of network abuse, every action that is performed on the Ethereum network, such as sending Ether (ETH) or executing a smart contract, requires a certain amount of computational resources, provided by the network nodes, which recieve a compensation for their work.
Depending on the complexity of the transaction, network congestion and other factors, gas prices can vary significantly. Gas costs can increase drastically during periods of high network activity, which causes delays in transaction confirmations and higher costs for users.