Metamask Gas Fee

If you are working in the crypto market, you probably know about DeFi. What bugs users the most about DeFi is the gas fee. If you don’t know what a gas fee is, continue reading this article.  Gas fees are the amount of crypto an individual is ready to pay miners as a reward for validating the transaction. They are the bittersweet part of DeFi, no one likes them but the system can’t function without them. This article will teach you what gas fees are, how Metamask gas fee work and how to adjust gas fees on your Metamask crypto wallet.

What is the gas fee?

Gas fees are the price you have to pay to get your transaction validated on any network. To find out how much you have to pay as the gas fee you need to first identify the network you’re conducting your transaction on. If you want to figure out the metamask gas fee, considering that metamask is connected to the Ethereum network by default, you must know that the gas fee is probably going to be high.

So, to put it simply, the transaction fee or gas fee to smart contracts is like fuel to cars. You need to put fuel into your car to drive and use it. If the smart contract you’re using is more complex than usual, it probably needs higher transaction fees. Such as if you are using a bigger car or a car that drives faster than usual, it’s going to need more fuel to operate as it does. 

On networks such as Ethereum, you are paying the transaction fee to miners to confirm your transaction. With other networks that don’t use a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm, there’s no miner though. Other smart contracts that use Proof of Stake (PoS) to confirm the transactions, the gas fee will be sent to validators who are staking their tokens on the network. 

How to adjust the Metamask gas fee?

This section of the article will teach you how to set up and adjust metamask gas fees. To learn how to adjust transaction fees on metamask, continue reading the article.

To begin adjusting the metamask gas fee, you must first make a transaction. So, open metamask and choose a token to send to another wallet. Or open a dApp (decentralized application) and connect your Metamask to perform an operation or to make a transaction. After you’ve completed this part you’ll see a window like this.

Here you will find the recommended gas fee suggested by metamask. But we want to adjust the metamask gas fee, not use the gas fee it recommends. The metamask gas fee suggested above varies from time to time and depends on a lot of things. Like how much is Ethereum’s price at that time being. Or if the amount of awaiting transactions has clogged the network, you’re going to pay a much higher gas fee. 

So, tap “Edit” to start adjusting the metamask gas fee. In the next window ignore the radio buttons letting you choose between low, medium and high. They don’t affect the gas fee that much and choosing each will only change the gas fee by cents. 

So, go ahead and choose the “Advanced Options” to start adjusting the metamask gas fee. In the next window you’ll see something like this:

So, what you need to change here is the “Max Fee (GWEI)“. Max fee is the total amount of gas you’re willing to pay to get your transaction through. The max fee is usually the amount that you will have to pay for your transaction. So, to adjust the metamask gas fee, we need to edit the max fee amount. 

To set the max fee you must first decide how fast you want your transaction to get validated on the Ethereum network. The suggested max fee amount usually takes a few minutes to be confirmed. If you aren’t in a rush and you don’t mind waiting around a day for your transaction to be validated, you can set the max fee between 35 and 40 GWEI. 

Setting the gas fee between 35 and 40 GWEI can cause the transaction to last around a day to be confirmed. If you aren’t in a hurry, go ahead and choose that. By setting up the max fee you might see this:

You don’t need to worry though. It’s saying that the amount of transactions has clogged the network right now, so your transaction won’t be confirmed anytime soon. When the amount of awaiting transactions decreases, your transaction will be confirmed. 

Conclusion 

And that’s how you adjust the metamask gas fee. Metamask operates on the Ethereum network and that means the transaction fee can sometimes be crippling to most. By manually setting the metamask gas fee you make sure you won’t be paying that much to get your transaction confirmed. 

Q&A

Why are metamask gas fees so high?

When you send tokens or interact with smart contracts to perform any action you must pay gas fees. Metamask is an Ethereum crypto wallet, and like any other network, Ethereum requires gas to operate. More complex smart contracts need more gas fees and also they charge you more gas fees when the network is clogged. 

Does metamask charge gas fees?

Users use Metamask crypto wallet to store and trade tokens. Metamask operates on the Ethereum network. Although metamask doesn’t charge you any gas fees, you need to pay transaction fees to send tokens or interact with the Ethereum network.

Why is gas fee so high?

When you are using more complex smart contracts such as Ethereum, you need to also pay higher gas fees. When a high maintenance network such as Ethereum is clogged, users need to pay much higher gas fees to a point that the transaction fee you’re paying is crippling.