The Alankrit Srivastava Blog

Tag: gas fees

  • Day 15 — What Actually Makes an App a dApp?

    Watercolor illustration of a user interface connecting a wallet to decentralized smart contracts

    What a decentralized application is

    A decentralized application, or dApp, is an app that uses blockchain-based rules instead of relying only on one company’s server.

    The screen may look like a normal website. However, the important actions connect to smart contracts.

    That is what makes a decentralized application different from a regular web app.

    The frontend still matters

    Most dApps still have a frontend. This is the page users see in the browser.

    The frontend helps users read information, choose actions, and connect a wallet.

    So, a decentralized application is not only smart contracts. It also needs a usable interface.

    The wallet replaces the login

    In many dApps, the wallet acts like the user account.

    The wallet signs messages and transactions. Then the blockchain can verify that the action came from the right user.

    This gives users more control, but it also creates more responsibility.

    Smart contracts hold the rules

    A smart contract is code that runs on a blockchain.

    For a decentralized application, smart contracts may manage tokens, lending, voting, swaps, or game items.

    Because the rules are public, users can inspect them. Still, public code can contain bugs.

    The takeaway

    A decentralized application combines a frontend, wallets, smart contracts, and on-chain state.

    It can be powerful because users interact with open rules. However, they must also understand fees, signatures, and contract risk.

  • Day 10 — Why Does Ethereum Charge Gas for Every Tiny Step?

    A measured gas meter limiting the computational work of Ethereum

    We now know that Ethereum nodes repeat the instructions inside a smart contract so that the network can agree on one result. That shared execution creates a new problem. Computation is not free. If anybody could ask every node to perform unlimited work, a careless program or an attacker could keep the network busy forever.

    Ethereum solves this with gas. Gas is a unit used to measure the amount of computational work a transaction requires. Adding two numbers costs a small amount. Reading or changing stored data costs more. Deploying a large smart contract may require much more. Gas is not a separate coin; it is the meter that counts the work, while the fee is paid in ether.

    Think of it like taking a taxi. Distance is not money, but it helps calculate the fare. In the same way, gas measures the journey through a program. A user sets a limit on how much gas the transaction may consume. If the contract finishes within that limit, unused capacity is not charged. If it runs out, execution stops so that the program cannot consume resources endlessly.

    The final fee also depends on what the network is charging for each unit of gas. When many people want their transactions included, block space becomes more competitive and fees can rise. A user can also offer an additional priority fee to encourage faster inclusion. This is why two identical actions performed at different times may cost different amounts.

    Gas protects the network, but it can surprise beginners. A transaction that fails may still consume a fee because nodes already performed work before discovering the failure. Paying for computation does not guarantee that the intended result will succeed; it pays the network for checking and executing the attempt.

    This system turns computation into a scarce resource and discourages spam. It also explains why developers try to write efficient contracts and why scaling Ethereum matters so much. Before we reach scaling, however, we need to understand who is authorising these paid instructions.

    When a website sees a password, it asks a company’s server whether the password is correct. Ethereum has no such account desk. So how can a wallet prove that a transaction truly came from you without sending a password to the network? The answer lies in digital signatures.