Gas fee

A gas fee is what a blockchain charges to run a transaction — paid in the network’s native coin, not to the card company. It’s the cost of having miners or validators record your action on-chain.

Why it matters: gas only enters the picture with self-custodial cards, where your money lives in a wallet on a blockchain rather than in a company account. Topping up, withdrawing, or swapping one token for another is an on-chain transaction, so you need a little of the native coin on hand to cover it. The everyday card swipe isn’t on-chain, so it costs no gas — the fee only bites when you fund the wallet or pull money back out. Small, but real to plan for if you’ve never held crypto.

For example: Gnosis Pay gives you a Safe smart account on Gnosis Chain, and you’ll want a small amount of the chain’s native coin (xDai) to move funds in or out of it. Card payments themselves carry no Gnosis Pay gas charge — gas applies only when you transfer crypto out of the Safe.