what is gwei 
gwei is a denomination of the cryptocurrency ether eth the digital coin used on the ethereum network ethereum is a blockchain platform like bitcoin where users transact to buy and sell goods and services without an intermediary or interference from a third party similar to fiat currencies like the u s dollar or euro ether is broken into denominations wei is the smallest denomination of ether like cents are to the u s dollar however while there are 100 cents in a dollar there is one quintillion wei 18 zeros to one ether and one billion gwei to one ether 1understanding gweithe ethereum platform has a native cryptocurrency known as ether eth ethereum itself is a blockchain that supports a wide range of decentralized applications dapps sidechains and programs all of which can be used to develop other cryptocurrencies ethereum the blockchain processes the transaction for these other applications and users pay for the processing in ether these fees are payments made by users to compensate the validators for the computational and storage resources they provide for the ethereum virtual machine the fees are priced in small fractions of ether so denominations were needed to make it economical to charge transaction fees there are seven denominations used on the ethereum network gwei is the middle denomination making it simpler to use and understand because it can be used to express values above and below it transaction fees on ethereum are called gas fees or gas prices for instance on may 5 2024 the median transaction fee of the ethereum blockchain was five gwei 2 you could ve said the gas price was 0 000000005 eth but it is much easier to say five gwei you could also use any of the other denominations but most users comprehend gwei better ether denominations explainedthe list below displays the typical ether units notice in the table that the denominations each have an alternate name in parentheses based on influential figures in the world of cryptography for example gwei may also be called shannon after claude shannon an american mathematician cryptographer and crypto analysis guru 3investopedia sabrina jiangether s naming convention is a nod to its founding figures much like a 100 bill features an image of ben franklin and a 5 bill pictures abraham lincoln it s interesting to note that ethereum uses cryptic language and naming conventions just like bitcoin does here in order of appearance in the table is the significance of the ether units nicknames it s important to note that ethereum is constantly evolving so there are many denominations in use currently that are not in the yellow papers maintained by the ethereum developers and community 4