What Is ‘Gas’ in the Context of Smart Contract Execution?

Gas is a unit of measurement for the computational effort required to execute operations on a blockchain, such as Ethereum. It is the fee paid to the network validators or miners to process and confirm a transaction or smart contract interaction.

The price of gas fluctuates based on network congestion, and it is paid in the network's native cryptocurrency, like ETH. It serves as a mechanism to prevent spam and allocate network resources efficiently.