Network Fees
This page explains how transaction fees work on the Plasma network, including support for custom gas tokens and zero fee USD₮ transfers.
Gas on Plasma
Plasma uses the standard EVM gas model to measure the computational cost of transactions and contract execution. Gas fees are paid to validators as compensation for securing the network and processing transactions. Like Ethereum, total transaction cost is calculated as:
Total Fee = Gas Used × Gas Price
Plasma is designed to maintain low and predictable gas prices. Most standard transactions cost less than one cent, with execution costs aligned closely with Ethereum for developer familiarity.
Key Features
1. Zero Fee USD₮ Transfers
Plasma includes a protocol-maintained paymaster contract that sponsors gas for eligible USD₮ transfers. The contract covers gas fees for transfer and transferFrom calls, based on lightweight identity checks and rate limits defined at the protocol level.
This allows developers to build fully fee-free stablecoin payment flows, while the Plasma Foundation maintains cost controls and eligibility logic.
2. Custom Gas Tokens
Plasma supports custom gas tokens via a native paymaster contract. Developers can register whitelisted ERC-20 tokens (such as stablecoins or ecosystem tokens) to be used as gas within their applications.
Unlike external paymasters, Plasma’s gas token paymaster is maintained by the protocol and does not charge a fee. This enables projects to abstract away XPL from their UX and let users pay fees in tokens they already hold.
3. Predictable Costs and High Throughput
Because Plasma mirrors Ethereum’s gas cost structure, developers can expect familiar pricing for common operations.
The difference is in performance. Plasma’s pipelined consensus and high throughput ensure fast, reliable transaction inclusion even under load.
Developer Notes
Zero-Fee USD₮ Transactions
To integrate zero fee USD₮ transfers, use Plasma’s paymaster-compatible wallet flow. The paymaster contract sponsors only native transfer and transferFrom calls. Rate limits and eligibility checks are enforced automatically.
This flow is fully compatible with EIP-4337 and EIP-7702 smart accounts.
Custom Gas Token Integration
To support custom gas tokens, developers can register their token with the protocol paymaster and enable their app to pay fees in that token. This is useful for localized stablecoins, ecosystem incentives, and UX simplification.
Why This Matters
Fee abstraction is one of the biggest UX barriers in crypto. Plasma removes that barrier for stablecoin apps.
Users can send USD₮ without holding XPL. Apps can abstract fees or denominate them in local stablecoins. Developers avoid the complexity of wrapping native tokens or deploying their own paymasters.
These design choices make Plasma ideal for cost-sensitive, high-volume applications from cross-border payments to retail wallets to stablecoin-based DeFi.