Glossary

Fee

16/04/2026

A fee in cryptocurrency is a payment included in a transaction to compensate the miner or validator who includes it in a block. Without fees, there would be no economic incentive to prioritize transactions.

Types of fees

Transaction fee

Paid by the sender when broadcasting a transaction. On Bitcoin, fees are set by the sender and measured in satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB). Higher fee → higher priority in the mempool → faster confirmation.

Gas fee (Ethereum / EVM chains)

On Ethereum and EVM-compatible networks, fees are called gas. Gas price is set in gwei (a fraction of ETH). After EIP-1559, fees consist of:

  • Base fee — burned (removed from supply), set by the network
  • Priority fee (tip) — goes to the validator/miner

Pool fee

The percentage deducted by a mining pool from miner payouts. Typically 1–3%.

Exchange fee / withdrawal fee

Charged by exchanges for trading or withdrawing funds.

Fees as miner revenue

Transaction fees are an increasingly important part of miner income. As block rewards halve over time, fees must eventually replace subsidies as the primary incentive for miners securing the network. On days with high network activity, fees can represent 10–50% of total block revenue.

See also