Why gas fee on Ethereum so expensive?

If you are active on the blockchain, especially active on the EVM network, you must be familiar with the high gas fee on the ETH blockchain or it can also be called ERC-20, when compared to other blockchains such as BSC, FTM or other blockchains the difference is like New york and Mumbai, but why is that happening?

What is Gas Fee?

Gas Fee is a rate that needs to be paid by users to compensate for the computational energy required to validate a trade or create a new contract on the Ethereum blockchain. The concept of gas was introduced to maintain a distinct value layer and only shows the computational consumption on the Ethereum network, this gas is an important element in the performance of the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM), because it acts as power for the running of Ethereum independently.

According to Ethereum.org, gas fees are expressed in gwei which is a denomination of ETH. Each gwei is equivalent to 0.000000001 ETH (10-9 ETH), so instead of saying the gas fee is 0.000000001 ether, you can say the gas fee is 1 gwei. The word 'gwei' itself means 'giga-wei', and it is equal to 1,000,000,000 wei which is the smallest unit of ETH, hopefully you can understand the brief explanation.

Function of Gas Fee

Gas fees can be likened to gasoline in a car, cars need fuel to run, the ethereum blockchain needs a gass fee so that the Ethereum network can work. The way it works is to collect computing fees charged to users so that transactions on the Ethereum blockchain can be carried out.

Not just for network fuel, gas fee is also useful for Ethereum network security, preventing bad guys who want to spam the network, reducing computational code waste and loop mechanisms or accidental repetition.

But the main question is why it so Expensive?

Gas fees can be high because Ethereum is one of the most widely used blockchains, there is so much movement on the Ethereum chain that blocks are full and transaction fees spike with each increase in demand. High gas fees do frustrate users and often have to delay transactions until the gas fee drops, but these increasingly expensive fees are also a sign that Ethereum and DApps on the ethereum network are interesting projects and have a lot of interest.

Yes, it is true that currently Ethereum is not the only blockchain that has advanced technology, there are already many blockchains that are able to compete with Ethereum, especially Solana, crypto users and communities are also starting to look for other blockchain alternatives and even many layer 2 ethereums have sprung up which are cheap versions of the Ethereum network,

but why the Ethereum Network still crowded?

The simple answer is the influence of psychology and trust, the majority of people know that NFTs and Dapps are products born on the Ethereum network, which creates a perception for developers and project owners (especially those who are new in WEB 3) that if they want to build Dapps, they must be on the Ethereum network, this has resulted in the ethereum blockchain still being very crowded, which has resulted in gas fees on the ethereum network continuing to be expensive.

Ethereum Foundation dan Community are not silent about the high cost of their network gas fees, currently they are starting the initial steps to reduce gas costs by making improvements to their network in the hope that every transaction on the ethereum network can be cheap and fast.

Best Regards. Pangrango