Gas fee

A gas fee is the payment, usually in the network's own coin such as ETH on Ethereum, needed to have a transaction processed; on Ethereum it is charged whether or not the transaction succeeds. ethereum.org gives the formula as units of gas used times the base fee plus a priority fee (tip). A plain ETH transfer uses 21,000 gas, so at a 10 gwei base fee and a 2 gwei tip it costs 252,000 gwei, or 0.000252 ETH; the base fee is burned and the tip goes to the validator.

Claiming an airdrop is a transaction, so it usually needs a little of the network's native coin. Layer 2 networks are cheaper: ethereum.org's layer 2 page showed an average cost of $0.022 on Ethereum and $0.0023 on Ethereum-backed networks when read on 27 October 2026. On Ethereum the fee is deducted from your account as part of the transaction itself. The FTC says no legitimate business demands cryptocurrency in advance, so a message asking you to send someone a separate "gas fee" to release an airdrop is a scam.