Gas Pricing

Tempo denominates gas prices in attodollars (10⁻¹⁸ USD), enabling precise economic accounting while maintaining human-readable dollar relationships. This approach ensures transaction costs remain predictable and aligned with real-world dollar values.

Economic Units

Tempo uses two primary units for fee accounting:

Attodollars (aUSD)

Attodollars are the base unit for gas pricing:

Precision: 10⁻¹⁸ USD (18 decimal places)
Usage: Gas price denomination (baseFee in attodollars per gas)
Symbol: aUSD

The base fee is specified in attodollars per gas unit:

baseFee = 2,000 aUSD/gas = 2 × 10⁻¹⁵ USD/gas

Microdollars (μUSD)

Microdollars are the standard unit for TIP-20 token amounts:

Precision: 10⁻⁶ USD (6 decimal places)
Usage: TIP-20 token balances and transfers
Symbol: μUSD
Equivalent: 1 TIP-20 token unit = 1 microdollar = 0.000001 USD

All TIP-20 stablecoins use 6 decimals, matching the USDC standard.

Conversion

To convert between gas cost and TIP-20 token amounts:

fee_in_microdollars = (gas × baseFee_in_attodollars) / 10¹²

Example:

Gas consumed: 50,000 gas
Base fee: 2,000 aUSD/gas
Fee in attodollars: 50,000 × 2,000 = 100,000,000 aUSD = 10⁸ aUSD
Fee in microdollars: 10⁸ / 10¹² = 100 μUSD = 0.0001 USD = 0.01 cents

Quick conversion at target base fee (2,000 aUSD/gas):

50,000 gas = 100 μUSD = 0.0001 USD = 0.01 cents
500,000 gas = 1,000 μUSD = 0.001 USD = 0.1 cents
5,000,000 gas = 10,000 μUSD = 0.01 USD = 1 cent

Rule of thumb: 1 cent per 500,000 gas at target base fee.

Base Fee Mechanism

Tempo uses an EIP-1559-style dynamic base fee that adjusts based on block utilization. Unlike Ethereum, the base fee is denominated in attodollars rather than a native token.

Target Utilization

The protocol targets 50% block utilization:

Block gas limit: 30,000,000 gas
Target gas per block: 15,000,000 gas

When blocks consistently exceed the target, the base fee increases. When blocks fall below the target, the base fee decreases.

Adjustment Formula

The base fee adjusts each block using:

baseFee_next = baseFee_current × (1 + adjustment)

where:
  adjustment = (gasUsed - gasTarget) / gasTarget × 1/8

This results in:

Full blocks (100% usage): Base fee increases by ~6.25% per block
Target blocks (50% usage): Base fee remains constant
Empty blocks (0% usage): Base fee decreases by 6.25% per block

Base Fee Floor

The base fee has a minimum floor to prevent spam attacks:

MIN_BASE_FEE = 1,000 aUSD/gas = 1 × 10⁻¹⁵ USD/gas

At this floor, a simple TIP-20 transfer (50,000 gas) costs:

fee = 50,000 gas × 1,000 aUSD/gas / 10¹² = 50 μUSD = 0.00005 USD

This minimum ensures that even under zero network load, transaction costs remain high enough to deter spam.

The base fee floor provides a critical security property: creating 1 TB of state costs at least $25 million (at floor prices), making large-scale spam attacks economically infeasible.

Transaction Cost Examples

Assuming the target base fee of 2,000 aUSD/gas:

TIP-20 Transfer (Existing Address)

Operation:      transfer(recipient, amount)
Gas used:       50,000 gas
Base fee:       2,000 aUSD/gas
Total cost:     50,000 × 2,000 / 10¹² = 100 μUSD
USD cost:       $0.0001 (0.01 cents)

This includes:

Base transaction cost: 21,000 gas
TIP-20 operation: 24,000 gas
Storage update (existing slot): 5,000 gas

TIP-20 Transfer (New Address)

Operation:      transfer(newRecipient, amount)
Gas used:       300,000 gas
Base fee:       2,000 aUSD/gas
Total cost:     300,000 × 2,000 / 10¹² = 600 μUSD
USD cost:       $0.0006 (0.06 cents)

The higher cost comes from:

Base operations: 50,000 gas
New storage slot (balance): 250,000 gas

Transferring to a new address does not charge the account creation fee (250,000 gas). That fee only applies when the recipient first uses their account (sends a transaction). See State Creation Costs below.

First Transaction from New Account

Operation:      transfer() from new account (nonce 0→1)
Gas used:       300,000 gas
Base fee:       2,000 aUSD/gas
Total cost:     300,000 × 2,000 / 10¹² = 600 μUSD
USD cost:       $0.0006 (0.06 cents)

This includes:

Transfer operation: 50,000 gas
Account creation (nonce write): 250,000 gas

Combined with the initial transfer to the address (0.06 cents), the total onboarding cost for a new user is approximately 0.12 cents.

Contract Deployment

Operation:      CREATE with 1 KB (1,000 bytes) of code
Gas used:       1,750,000 gas
Base fee:       2,000 aUSD/gas
Total cost:     1,750,000 × 2,000 / 10¹² = 3,500 μUSD
USD cost:       $0.0035 (0.35 cents)

Breakdown:

Account creation: 250,000 gas
Contract code: 1,000 bytes × 1,000 gas/byte = 1,000,000 gas
Contract metadata (keccak + codesize): 500,000 gas

State Creation Costs

Tempo significantly increases the cost of state-creating operations to protect against adversarial state growth. These costs are defined in TIP-1000.

New Storage Slot

Operation: SSTORE from zero to non-zero value

Gas cost:       250,000 gas
Dollar cost:    250,000 × 2,000 / 10¹² = 500 μUSD = $0.0005

Why: At Tempo’s target throughput (20,000 TPS), an adversary could create 120 TB of state per year at the standard EVM cost (20,000 gas). The increased cost raises this to $50 million per TB, making spam attacks economically infeasible.

Account Creation

Operation: First transaction from an address (nonce 0→1)

Gas cost:       250,000 gas
Dollar cost:    $0.0005 (0.05 cents)

Why: Prevents mass account creation attacks. Creating 10 million accounts would cost approximately $5,000.

Contract Code Storage

Per-byte cost:

Gas cost:       1,000 gas/byte (up from 200 gas/byte in standard EVM)
Dollar cost:    1,000 × 2,000 / 10¹² = 2 μUSD = $0.000002 per byte

Contract creation overhead:

Gas cost:       500,000 gas (for keccak hash + codesize fields)
Dollar cost:    $0.001 (0.1 cents)

Total formula:

contractCreationGas = accountCreation + (codeSize × 1,000) + 500,000
                    = 250,000 + (codeSize × 1,000) + 500,000
                    = 750,000 + (codeSize × 1,000)

Example (10 KB contract):

Code size:      10,000 bytes
Gas cost:       750,000 + (10,000 × 1,000) = 10,750,000 gas
Dollar cost:    10,750,000 × 2,000 / 10¹² = 21,500 μUSD = $0.0215

Attack Cost Analysis

At the target base fee (2,000 aUSD/gas):

State Size	Cost to Create
1 GB	$50,000
10 GB	$500,000
100 GB	$5,000,000
1 TB	$50,000,000
10 TB	$500,000,000

These costs assume ~100 bytes per state element (1 TB ≈ 10 billion state elements × 250,000 gas each).

At the base fee floor (1,000 aUSD/gas), the costs are halved but remain prohibitively expensive for spam attacks:

1 TB of state: $25 million
10 TB of state: $250 million

Gas Limit

Tempo increases the per-transaction gas limit to accommodate large contract deployments:

MAX_TX_GAS = 30,000,000 gas (up from 16,000,000 in standard EVM)

This allows deployment of 24 KB contracts:

maxCodeSize = (30,000,000 - 750,000) / 1,000 = 29,250 bytes ≈ 28.5 KB

In practice, the limit accommodates the largest EVM contracts with margin for initialization logic.

Priority Fees

Tempo does not currently support priority fees (tips to validators). All fees are calculated using the base fee only:

totalFee = gasUsed × baseFee

Future protocol versions may introduce priority fees for block inclusion preferences.

Economic Stability

The attodollar denomination provides several advantages:

Predictable Costs

Developers can reason about transaction costs in dollar terms without tracking volatile token prices:

// Calculate fee in dollars directly
const gasUsed = 50_000;
const baseFeeInAttodollars = 2_000n;
const feeInDollars = Number(gasUsed * baseFeeInAttodollars) / 1e18;

console.log(`Fee: $${feeInDollars.toFixed(6)}`); // Fee: $0.000100

Stable Fee Markets

Because stablecoins maintain a fixed dollar value, base fee adjustments directly reflect network congestion rather than token price volatility.

Cross-Token Compatibility

All USD-denominated TIP-20 tokens share the same economic model. A transaction costing 100 μUSD costs the same whether paid in pathUSD, USDC, USDT, or any other USD stablecoin (before AMM conversion fees).

Reference: Gas Costs

Base Operations

Operation	Gas Cost
Base transaction	21,000
TIP-20 transfer operation	~24,000
TIP-20 approval	~46,000
Contract call (simple)	~25,000

State Operations

Operation	Gas Cost
SSTORE (existing slot, non-zero → non-zero)	5,000
SSTORE (existing slot, non-zero → zero)	-15,000 (refund)
SSTORE (new slot, zero → non-zero)	250,000
Account creation (first nonce write)	250,000
Contract code (per byte)	1,000
Contract creation overhead	500,000

TIP-20 Operations

Operation	Gas Cost (approx)
transfer (existing address)	50,000
transfer (new address)	300,000
transferFrom (existing)	55,000
approve	46,000
mint (new balance)	275,000
burn	25,000

Next Steps

Fee AMM

Learn how automatic stablecoin conversion works

Stablecoin Fees

Guide to paying gas in USD stablecoins

TIP-1000 Specification

Full specification of state creation cost increases

Transaction Types

TIP-20 Token Standard

Fee System

Precompiles

TIPs (Tempo Improvement Proposals)

Economic Units

Attodollars (aUSD)

Microdollars (μUSD)

Conversion

Base Fee Mechanism

Target Utilization

Adjustment Formula

Base Fee Floor

Transaction Cost Examples

TIP-20 Transfer (Existing Address)

TIP-20 Transfer (New Address)

First Transaction from New Account

Contract Deployment

State Creation Costs

New Storage Slot

Account Creation

Contract Code Storage

Attack Cost Analysis

Gas Limit

Priority Fees

Economic Stability

Predictable Costs

Stable Fee Markets

Cross-Token Compatibility

Reference: Gas Costs

Base Operations

State Operations

TIP-20 Operations

Next Steps

Fee AMM

Stablecoin Fees

TIP-1000 Specification

Transaction Types

TIP-20 Token Standard

Fee System

Precompiles

TIPs (Tempo Improvement Proposals)

​Economic Units

​Attodollars (aUSD)

​Microdollars (μUSD)

​Conversion

​Base Fee Mechanism

​Target Utilization

​Adjustment Formula

​Base Fee Floor

​Transaction Cost Examples

​TIP-20 Transfer (Existing Address)

​TIP-20 Transfer (New Address)

​First Transaction from New Account

​Contract Deployment

​State Creation Costs

​New Storage Slot

​Account Creation

​Contract Code Storage

​Attack Cost Analysis

​Gas Limit

​Priority Fees

​Economic Stability

​Predictable Costs

​Stable Fee Markets

​Cross-Token Compatibility

​Reference: Gas Costs

​Base Operations

​State Operations

​TIP-20 Operations

​Next Steps

Fee AMM

Stablecoin Fees

TIP-1000 Specification

Economic Units

Attodollars (aUSD)

Microdollars (μUSD)

Conversion

Base Fee Mechanism

Target Utilization

Adjustment Formula

Base Fee Floor

Transaction Cost Examples

TIP-20 Transfer (Existing Address)

TIP-20 Transfer (New Address)

First Transaction from New Account

Contract Deployment

State Creation Costs

New Storage Slot

Account Creation

Contract Code Storage

Attack Cost Analysis

Gas Limit

Priority Fees

Economic Stability

Predictable Costs

Stable Fee Markets

Cross-Token Compatibility

Reference: Gas Costs

Base Operations

State Operations

TIP-20 Operations

Next Steps