&gt; The protocol defines a gas cost for each opcode in the EVM, hence the gas cost is distributed across all nodes.<p>What I meant was this: Not every node that executes a contract can be paid for the gas. Some one node (or maybe a few) must &quot;win&quot; and get the gas cost. I was wondering which one it was.<p>Based on the White Paper (thanks for the link!) my rough understanding is now as follows: If a node executes a transaction <i>and</i> is the first to include that transaction in a block, then this node gets the transaction&#x27;s gas cost <i>plus</i> a mining reward. Is this correct? Essentially, it would be like Bitcoin&#x27;s transaction fees + block reward.