Tron plans to introduce a “Gas Free” option next week, eliminating transaction fees for Tether USDt transfers.
Tether reported that Tron, once known for its low-cost USDt transfers, saw a sharp increase in gas fees, which exceeded $9 in late 2024.
Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, announced that Tether’s USDT stablecoin will offer zero-fee transactions on Tron.
“Tron’s Gas Free feature supporting USDT gas payments without the need for TRX will launch within the next week,” Sun announced in an X post on Feb. 25.
The founder of Tron has urged any teams or wallets that want to support the gas-free Tether USDt feature to contact JustLend, Tron’s decentralized autonomous lending organization.
Tron built its reputation on cheap USDT transactions, positioning itself as a viable alternative to Ethereum’s more expensive ERC-20 version.
Recently, USDT transfer costs on Tron have surged, making it one of the more expensive options.
Tether’s GasFeesNow page shows that TRC-20 USDt carries the highest gas fees of all supported blockchains, ranging from $3.20 to $6.50. In contrast, ERC-20 USDt costs about $0.40 per transaction.
“Gas fees estimation is tricky for the Tron network,” the page notes, adding that TRC-20 USDT transfers require wallets to have “energy” and “bandwidth.”
“If you are a regular user who sends USDT once or twice per month, chances are your wallet does not have energy,” Tether’s GasFeesNow page states, offering a few methods to cut the fees.
Read also: A new report shows how memecoins boosted the Tron Network revenue in 2024
Tether’s records confirm that TRC-20 USDt fees skyrocketed in late 2024, reaching $9 per transaction on December 9.
Many users have voiced concerns that Tron no longer offers the most cost-effective option for stablecoin transfers due to the fee increase.
“USDT on Tron used to be the cheapest option, but they fell behind a lot,” one commentator wrote on X in mid-December.
The Tron Foundation has been working on gas-free TRC-20 transaction tools since at least July 2024, with Sun initially planning to launch them in Q4 2024.
“I believe that similar services will greatly facilitate large companies in deploying stablecoin services on the blockchain, elevating blockchain mass adoption to a new level,” Sun said at the time.
