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 — full settlement layer context
- Radius is not a blockchain — architectural context for the fee model
- Fees documentation — Turnstile mechanics and stablecoin configuration