FAQ: Why do i Need eth/gas to use the system?

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# Why do i Need eth/gas to use the system?

## Basic Answer

Gitcoin is an Ethereum-based product.

Gas is the payment that is sent to the ethereum node operators (also called miners), in exchange for execution of a smart contract. Paying miners on Ethereum (in ETH or in 1/10**18 of a ETH, also called a WEI) is not unlike how you pay your electric company for electricity (in KWH)

### Gas / Gas Limit

*gas / gas limit* is how many cycles (think opcodes) your transaction will take.

your transaction might fail if you don’t pay a high enough gas limit. gitcoin _should_ provide an adequate gas limit to most transactions, but report a bug if we dont!

### Gas Price
*gas price* is how much ETH you’re willing to pay per cycle.

your transaction might take forever to get confirmed if you don’t choose a market viable gas price

See [this article](https://github.com/gitcoinco/gitcoinco/issues/12) for choosing a gas price.

## Advanced Answer

> Gas is the internal pricing for running a transaction or contract in Ethereum. It's to decouple the unit of Ether (ETH) and its market value from the unit to measure computational use (gas). Thus, a miner can decide to increase or decrease the use of gas according to its needs, while if need be, the price of gas can be increased or decreased accordingly, avoiding a situation in which an increase in the price of ETH would cause the need to change all gas prices. This is also a response to the discussion in bitcoin about fees structure. ~ [CryptoCompare](https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/what-is-the-gas-in-ethereum/ )

> The gas system is not very different from the use of Kw for measuring electricity home use. One difference from actual energy market is that the originator of the transaction sets the price of gas, to which the miner can or not accept, this causes an emergence of a market around gas. You can see the evolution of the price of gas here: https://etherscan.io/charts/gasprice

# See Also

* [What values should I use for gas/gas price?](https://github.com/gitcoinco/gitcoinco/issues/12)
* See other FAQ questions here: https://gitcoin.co/about#faq
* [Why isnt my tx clearing?](https://github.com/gitcoinco/gitcoinco/issues/50)