Shadowing Practice: What is Ethereum Gas? (Examples + Easy Explanation) - Learn English Speaking with Video

Let's say you're standing in line at Starbucks waiting for your coffee

and you notice that there's maybe 4 people in front of you.

Normally you'd look at this number and you'd think about your wait time, but just for the fun of it,

now let's say that you're thinking about the 4 people in correlation to both your wait time and your new transaction fee.

Because in this thought experiment, the more people that are waiting for coffee, the higher the price to get your coffee.

Why?

Because this coffee shop works like an auction, and serves coffee to the people who will pay the highest transaction fee first.

So you get up to the counter

and your barista says your coffee will be $8 plus a transaction fee of $2 which would come out to $10 total.

Now let's imagine that there are 300 people standing in line for coffee because they just released their new pumpkin spice flavor.

Since there are 300 people in line, the average transaction fee to get your coffee soon is $50.

That's outrageous you think.

You could pay your old $2 if you wanted to, but you would be waiting all morning, all day, evening until the rush of pumpkin heads died down.

Instead, you pay the $50 transaction fee on your $8 coffee, coming to a total of $58 for your morning cup of joe.

Welcome to Whiteboard Crypto, where we explain cryptocurrency topics in a way

that is so easy to understand your grandpa would smash the like button.

Hopefully, you connected with that pumpkin spice analogy because it's relevant to Ethereum

and something you're going to learn about today called Ethereum Gas.

So what is Ethereum and what is Ethereum Gas?

Well first off, Ethereum is programmable money.

Basically, you can use it to do things.

For example, if you wanted to, you could add 4 plus 4 and then Ethereum would tell you that the answer is 8, but it would cost you 3 gas.

If you wanted to check your friend's Ethereum wallet balance because you want to know how much money he has, you might need 400 gas.

And if you wanted the network to send some ether that you have to your friend, you would have to pay 21,000 gas.

Now you might be wondering, why the heck would I have to pay to have Ethereum do some simple addition for me?

Well, if you keep watching this video, I'm going to explain it at the end.

And oh yeah, it's called gas because it's similar to the gasoline that you put in your car.

It is the fuel that powers the code and computations that happen on the Ethereum network.

So just like I said, Ethereum is programmable money.

And we have gas as a way to make sure

that these things don't change even if the price of Ethereum skyrockets or plummets.

It should always take three gas to add two numbers, whether the price of Ethereum is $200 or $20,000.

However, one thing we do have to do is convert the amount of gas to the cost of gas.

So to find out how much it will truly cost, we need to multiply gas cost by the gas price.

The gas cost of things doesn't change.

It's always 21,000 gas for a transaction or 400 gas to check a balance.

But the price of one gas does change.

And this is where something weird called GUE comes in.

So what is GUE?

Well, GUE stands for GIGAWAY.

Now, you can think about it like this.

A WAY is like one penny that is to a dollar, or one satoshi to a bitcoin.

Instead, it's for Ethereum.

So there are actually one quintillion ways in one Ethereum.

And because that is a ridiculously small amount,

we instead use GIGAWAY, which is 0.000000001 Ether.

Now, personally, I learn best by examples and actually seeing something in action.

So to learn what Ethereum gas is, let's go over a simple example.

Let's say you want to send some money to your friend.

Well first, we're going to have to know some things.

The first thing we need to know is the price of what a transaction costs.

Well that is 21,000 gas.

This number never changes.

The next thing we need to know is the price of Ethereum.

Right now, Ethereum is at $2,000 USD.

And this number actually changes all the time.

And the third thing that we need to know is the price of gas.

And this actually can be whatever you want it to be, but the higher that it is, the faster that this calculation will be performed.

And we'll talk about that in a little bit.

But right now let's assume the average price of gas is 100 Guay.

So this means the cost of the transaction is 21,000 gas times 100 Guay.

So let's do some simple math and reduce this.

If we do 21,000 times .0000100 because that's 100 Guay, we get what it is equal to in Ether.

And this comes out to .0021 Ethereum.

This means that it costs us .0021 Ethereum to send a transaction.

If you want to figure out how much actual cash that is, you take .0021 and you multiply it by the price of Ethereum,

which is $2,000, and you get $4.20.

This means that it costs $4.20 to make a transaction.

So breaking this down, to find out how much something costs to perform on the Ethereum network, you take the price of the action times the cost of gas,

and that gives you the amount of Ethereum it takes to perform that task.

And if you want to convert that to how much actual cash or how many United States dollars it takes, you just take that amount of ether and you multiply it by the current price of ether.

So I hope that this explanation was helpful.

In fact, there's a little cool resource I want to share.

If you're curious what the current price of gas is, you can actually check out ethgasstation.info.

There's a link in the description below if you want to look at it.

But while we're at it, let's go over one more example just to make sure you get the hang of it.

Let's assume the same situation as above, but for this example, we're going to say that the network is very busy, and because of this the cost of gas is high.

Now the cost of gas is 700 guay instead of 100 guay.

So to calculate how much it would cost to send your friends some money, we have to plug in these numbers into the equation.

Remember the equation is price of action, price of whatever the action is in gas, times the cost of gas in guay, times the ethereum price in dollars.

So here we go.

The price of a transaction is still 21,000 gas.

However this time the cost of gas is now 700 Guay which is equal to .000000700 Ether.

And the price of Ethereum is still the same for this example, we're going to use $2000.

So we multiply all of those together,

21000 times .0000007 times 2000 and we end up with a transaction fee of $29.40.

So because the network is congested and tons of people are waiting on it to do stuff, this This transaction will cost $29.40 to send money to your friend,

and that transaction cost is the same whether you're sending $5 or whether you're sending $5 million.

And this is the beauty and the downfall of this system.

Now moving on, earlier I said that the gas price can be different, and this is where we go back to the coffee analogy.

Let's say there are people standing in line for coffee, and the people willing to pay the most get their coffee the first.

Since Ethereum miners can only include a certain number of transactions per block, they pick whichever ones pay them the most right now they get those fees as a reward.

So for example, you could spend 100 guay or 10 guay or even a thousand guay if you wanted to.

If you spend 10 guay, it might take a few hours to get confirmed.

But if you spend 1000 guay, it could be confirmed almost immediately.

It really depends how bad you want your coffee.

And if you want to think about it better, imagine yourself as a miner and on average you're getting a $5 to mine some transactions.

However, some guy gives you a $50 tip and tells you to hurry up and do his.

You can be sure that you're going to be doing his very quickly.

100

However, if someone's like, well, 20 cents is all I got, do with it what you can, you're only going to do it when all the other transactions are finished first.

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Now this far in the video, you might be wondering why we need all of this.

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Because it's very confusing.

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GWE and GAS were actually implemented into the Ethereum network so people had to pay for code to be ran.

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Imagine if you could write a piece of code that said, I want someone to do this action for free forever.

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Well, without a GAS limit and a GWE price, they could actually write code that went on forever, ruining the entire blockchain.

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Another thing I want to talk about in this video is something called EIP-1559.

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Improvement Plan, which is what EIP stands for, and the number is 1559, it is said to go live in July of 2021.

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And what it will do is take whatever the transaction fee is for a transaction and essentially burn it.

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It'll be gone forever.

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Now right now, while we are posting this video, the miners still get that fee, and it can equal up to an extra $4,000 per block.

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This makes mining very profitable.

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In fact, Ethereum is the most profitable coin to mine right now.

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However, After July 2021, these fees will be burned and gone forever.

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This means mining could be less profitable, which could mean less miners and also less expensive GPUs due to supply and demand.

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I don't want to give my personal opinion on this, but it will be very interesting to see whether this actually gets implemented at all, and if it does, how the network and the miners will react to it.

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And ending this video, I want to answer the main question.

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Why would you want to do something as simple as adding two numbers in Ethereum?

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So I said earlier that Ethereum is programmable money.

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In fact, you can write entire programs, and even whole functioning websites that work using Ethereum.

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These are called decentralized applications, or what we call them, dApps dApps function by running code that you paid for to do certain things,

121

and on the Ethereum network you can literally write programming code to run certain functions.

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So adding or addition is really basic, but it's the foundation of code.

123

You can also subtract, multiply, divide, and from there you can do other logic things like if-then statements and for loops, and it gets really complicated very quickly.

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With enough imagination and education, you can actually create an entire decentralized exchange like Uniswap,

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where you can trade coins for other coins without there being a central authority, like Coinbase.

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But that's a video for another day.

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If you enjoyed this video, please please please hit that like button and subscribe, because it helps us like you can't even imagine.

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We are just starting this channel, and every little bit helps.

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We love making these videos, but they take a lot of time and even money to produce.

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However, we know that they will help someone, because creating them helps us understand these topics even better too.

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Anyways, we hope that you learned something, and we hope to see you in the next video.

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Thanks for watching!

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 132 sentences and 1959 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:38. The speaker talks fast, about 203 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 89% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
transaction noun	/tɹænˈzækʃən/	The act of conducting or carrying out (business, negotiations, plans).
miner noun	/ˈmaɪnə(ɹ)/	A person who works in a mine.
coin noun	/ˈkoɪ̯n/	A piece of currency, usually metallic and in the shape of a disc, but sometimes polygonal, or with a hole in the middle.
profitable adjective	/ˈpɹɑ.fɪ.tə.bl̩/	Producing a profit.
pumpkin noun	/ˈpʌm(p).kɪn/	A domesticated plant, in species Cucurbita pepo, similar in growth pattern, foliage, flower, and fruit to the squash or melon.
topic noun	/ˈtɑpɪk/	A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
confirm verb	/kənˈfɝm/	To strengthen; to make firm or resolute.
implement verb	/ˈɪmpləmənt/	To bring about; to put into practice; to carry out.
convert verb	/kənˈvɝt/	To transform or change (something) into another form, substance, state, or product.
equation noun	/ɪˈkweɪ.ʒən/	The act or process of equating two or more things, or the state of those things being equal (that is, identical).
spouse noun	/spaʊ̯s/	A person in a marriage or marital relationship.
analogy noun	/əˈnæləd͡ʒi/	A relationship of resemblance or equivalence between two situations, people, or objects, especially when used as a basis for explanation or extrapolation.
rush verb	/ɹʌʃ/	To hurry; to perform a task with great haste, often not properly or without thinking carefully.
complicated adjective	/ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/	Difficult or convoluted.
curious adjective	/ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/	Tending to ask questions, or to want to explore or investigate; inquisitive; (with a negative connotation) nosy, prying.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
find out verb	To discover, as by asking or investigating.
go over verb	To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze.
check out verb	To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
die down verb	To become less virulent or strong; to subside.
figure out verb	To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
get up to verb	To do something, especially something that is forbidden or improper.
go back to verb	To stem from; to originate in.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if you wanted to, but you would be
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	will be performed · is congested · could be confirmed
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who will · GIGAWAY, which is · Guay which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 22 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, we're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, ether /ˈi.θɚ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: transaction /tɹænˈzækʃən/, equation /ɪˈkweɪ.ʒən/, rush /ɹʌʃ/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
Long words — get the stress right: analogy /əˈnæləd͡ʒi/, complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like transaction, miner, coin.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?