Gas and Fee Model

Overview

This page explains how transaction fees work on Shardeum and how developers can design applications with predictable and cost-efficient execution.

Gas Fundamentals

Shardeum uses the standard EVM gas model:

• each operation has a defined gas cost,
• gas measures computational and state access effort, and
• transactions must specify a gas limit.

This ensures compatibility with existing Ethereum tooling and mental models.

Fee Denomination

All transaction fees on Shardeum are:

• denominated in SHM, the network’s native token, and
• paid by the transaction sender.

Fees are deducted as part of transaction execution and distributed according to protocol rules.

Fee Calculation (High-Level)

At a high level, transaction fees depend on:

• the amount of gas consumed during execution, and
• the gas price specified in the transaction.

Actual gas usage is determined at runtime based on:

• contract logic,
• storage reads and writes, and
• execution complexity.

Predictable Fee Behavior

Shardeum is designed to maintain predictable transaction costs under normal network conditions.

Key characteristics include:

• stable fee behavior for common transaction types,
• minimal variance for simple transfers and standard contract calls, and
• reduced cost sensitivity for applications with frequent interactions.

This predictability allows developers to:

• estimate user costs more accurately, and
• design UX flows without large fee uncertainty.

Gas Optimization Best Practices

Developers building on Shardeum can reduce costs by:

• minimizing unnecessary storage writes,
• batching related operations when possible,
• avoiding unbounded loops in smart contracts, and
• reusing well-tested contract patterns.

Standard Ethereum gas optimization techniques apply directly.

Application Design Considerations

When designing applications:

• prefer simple, deterministic execution paths,
• surface fee estimates clearly to users, and
• handle transaction failures gracefully.

For high-volume applications, careful contract design and RPC usage can significantly improve cost efficiency and user experience.

What Developers Should Take Away

• Shardeum follows a familiar EVM gas model, lowering onboarding friction.
• Fees are SHM-denominated and designed to remain predictable.
• Existing Ethereum gas optimization strategies remain effective.