Fee units explained
Every chain quotes its fee price in its own unit. Here is what each one is and how many make one coin.
| Unit | Chain | Per coin | What | Convert |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| gwei | Ethereum and every EVM chain | 1,000,000,000 = 1 ETH | The unit gas prices are quoted in. 1 gwei = 1,000,000,000 wei. | gwei → ETH |
| wei | Ethereum | 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1 ETH | The smallest unit of ether. | wei → ETH |
| sat | Bitcoin | 100,000,000 = 1 BTC | The smallest unit of bitcoin. Fee rates are quoted in sat per virtual byte (sat/vB). | sat → BTC |
| litoshi | Litecoin | 100,000,000 = 1 LTC | The smallest unit of litecoin; fee rates are lit/vB. | litoshi → LTC |
| koinu | Dogecoin | 100,000,000 = 1 DOGE | The smallest unit of dogecoin. | koinu → DOGE |
| lamport | Solana | 1,000,000,000 = 1 SOL | The smallest unit of SOL. The base fee is charged in lamports per signature. | lamport → SOL |
| sun | Tron | 1,000,000 = 1 TRX | The smallest unit of TRX. Energy and bandwidth prices are set in sun. | sun → TRX |
| drop | XRP Ledger | 1,000,000 = 1 XRP | The smallest unit of XRP. Transaction costs are quoted in drops. | drop → XRP |
| sompi | Kaspa | 100,000,000 = 1 KAS | The smallest unit of KAS. Fee rates are sompi per gram of mass. | sompi → KAS |
| nAVAX | Avalanche C-Chain | 1,000,000,000 = 1 AVAX | Gas prices on the C-Chain are quoted in nAVAX (= gwei of AVAX). | nAVAX → AVAX |
Fee concepts
- Gas
- Ethereum-style chains measure computation in gas. A plain transfer uses 21,000; a token transfer, swap or mint uses more. Fee = gas used × gas price.
- Base fee and priority fee
- Since EIP-1559 the gas price is a protocol-set base fee (burned) plus a tip to the block proposer. The base fee moves by at most 12.5 % per block.
- sat/vB
- Bitcoin's fee rate: satoshis per virtual byte. Virtual size counts signature (witness) data at a quarter weight.
- Energy and bandwidth
- Tron's two resources. Smart-contract calls such as a USDT transfer use energy; every transaction uses bandwidth (bytes). Without staked resources, TRX is burned at the network's price for each.
- Lamports per signature
- Solana's base fee is charged per signature. A priority fee per compute unit can be added on top.
- L1 data fee
- On a rollup, the share of the cost of publishing the batch to Ethereum. Since EIP-4844 it follows the blob base fee.
- Mass
- Kaspa's measure of a transaction's weight (size, outputs, signature operations, and the KIP-9 storage mass). Fee = mass × fee rate in sompi per gram.
Sources per unit in the table; blob pricing: EIP-4844.
Questions and answers
What is the difference between gwei and wei?
Both are units of ether. 1 ETH = 1,000,000,000 gwei = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 wei. Gas prices are quoted in gwei because the numbers stay readable.
How many satoshis are in one bitcoin?
100,000,000. Fee rates are quoted in satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB).