The lifecycle of a transaction in the Hedera ecosystem begins when a client creates a transaction. Once the transaction is created it is cryptographically signed at a minimum by the account paying for the fees associated with the transaction. Additional signatures may be required depending on the properties set for the account, topic, or token. The client is able to stipulate the maximum fee it is willing to pay for the processing of the transaction and, for a smart contract operation, the maximum amount of gas. Once the required signatures are applied to the transaction the client then submits the transaction to any node on the Hedera network.