# No native token

**Radius has no native token.** Transaction fees are paid in stablecoins (USD) at a fixed rate of approximately 0.00001 USD per transaction. No gas token required. No token to acquire, hold, or manage.

---

## How stablecoin fees work

Radius charges a fixed gas price denominated in stablecoins. Users pay in the same stablecoin they're transferring — no separate gas asset required.

**The Turnstile mechanism:** Radius uses an internal accounting token (RUSD) to represent gas. When a wallet holds a supported stablecoin (SBC, USDC, or others) but not enough RUSD to cover gas, the Turnstile automatically converts the stablecoin to RUSD inline. The conversion is transparent — users only need to hold one stablecoin to transact on Radius.

Current fee: **~0.00001 USD per transaction** (paid in stablecoins via Turnstile).

---

## Why no native token

**Predictable costs.** Native token gas auctions cause transaction costs to spike unpredictably during high demand. On Ethereum, gas prices have ranged from 1 gwei to 500+ gwei in the same week. Radius fees are fixed in dollars — modeling the cost of 10 million transactions requires one multiplication, not a gas price oracle.

**No volatility exposure.** ETH, SOL, and other gas tokens fluctuate in USD value. When token price drops 50%, the USD cost of running operations doubles. Stablecoin fees are denominated in dollars. They are stable by design.

**No validator incentive distortions.** On token-based networks, validators benefit from token price appreciation independent of network utility. This creates incentives misaligned with users — validators profit from speculation, not from network usage. Radius operators are compensated in stable dollars, aligned with actual transaction volume.

**No onboarding friction.** Users and developers don't need to acquire a gas token before transacting. USDC, SBC, or any supported stablecoin in a standard EVM wallet is sufficient to use Radius. This is the difference between "get some ETH first" and "start transacting."

---

## Comparison

| Network | Fee token | Fee predictability | Gas auctions | Onboarding |
|---------|-----------|-------------------|--------------|------------|
| Ethereum | ETH (volatile) | Low — spikes with demand | Yes | Requires acquiring ETH |
| Solana | SOL (volatile) | Medium — priority fees exist | Yes | Requires acquiring SOL |
| Base | ETH (volatile) | Medium | Yes | Requires bridging ETH |
| Radius | USD stablecoins (fixed) | High — fixed rate | No | Stablecoin in any EVM wallet |

---

## What agents need to know

For AI agents making automated payments on Radius:

- Fees are fixed: **~0.00001 USD per transaction**
- Standard fee estimation works — viem, ethers.js, and other EVM tooling land transactions with no gas overrides
- Failed transactions do not charge gas
- The x402 facilitator handles fee mechanics automatically — no manual gas management required
- No need to hold or acquire a separate gas token

**Transaction cost API:**

| Network | Endpoint |
|---------|----------|
| Mainnet | `https://network.radiustech.xyz/api/v1/network/transaction-cost` |
| Testnet | `https://testnet.radiustech.xyz/api/v1/network/transaction-cost` |

The API returns `gas_price_wei`, useful for displaying or budgeting transaction cost ahead of time. You do not need to pass it as a `gasPrice` override — standard tooling (viem, ethers.js) fetches the correct fixed price via `eth_gasPrice` automatically.

---

## Further reading

- [Why Radius for Agent Payments](https://docs.radiustech.xyz/llms/why-radius.md) — full settlement layer context
- [Radius is not a blockchain](https://docs.radiustech.xyz/llms/radius-vs-blockchain.md) — architectural context for the fee model
- [Fees documentation](https://docs.radiustech.xyz/developer-resources/fees.md) — Turnstile mechanics and stablecoin configuration