TIP-1010: Mainnet Gas Parameters

Abstract

This TIP specifies the initial gas parameters for Tempo mainnet, including base fee pricing, payment lane capacity, and main transaction gas limits. These parameters are calibrated to support Tempo's target of approximately 20,000 TPS for payment transactions while maintaining economically sustainable fee levels.

Motivation

Tempo is designed as a high-throughput blockchain optimized for stablecoin payments. To achieve this, the gas parameters must be carefully calibrated to:

Enable high throughput: Support ~20,000 TPS for payment transactions
Maintain low fees: Target 0.1 cent per standard TIP-20 transfer
Prevent spam: Ensure fees are high enough to deter abuse
Balance capacity: Allocate appropriate gas limits between payment lane and general transactions

The parameters defined in this TIP represent the initial mainnet configuration and may be adjusted through future governance processes.

Specification

Base Fee

Value: 2 × 10^10 wei (20 gwei)

Rationale:

A standard TIP-20 transfer costs approximately 50,000 gas
At 20 gwei base fee: 50,000 × 20 × 10^9 = 10^15 wei = 0.001 USD (assuming 1 ETH = $1000 for unit conversion reference)
This targets approximately 0.1 cent per TIP-20 transfer

Note: The base fee may fluctuate based on network demand through the existing EIP-1559-style mechanism. This value represents the target equilibrium base fee.

Payment Lane Gas Limit

Value: 500,000,000 gas per block (total block gas limit)

Rationale:

At 50,000 gas per TIP-20 transfer: 500,000,000 / 50,000 = 10,000 transfers per block
With 500ms block time: 10,000 × 2 = 20,000 TPS for payment transactions
This capacity supports Tempo's target throughput for payment use cases

Constraints:

Only transactions qualifying for the payment lane (simple TIP-20 transfers, memos, etc.) may exceed the general_gas_limit
Complex contract interactions use the general gas limit instead

Main Transaction Gas Limit

Value: 30,000,000 gas per block (general_gas_limit)

Rationale:

Aligned with the transaction gas cap to ensure maximum-sized contract deployments can be included in a block
Supports general smart contract interactions beyond simple payments
Provides capacity for:
- Contract deployments (including max 24KB contracts)
- DEX swaps
- Complex multi-step transactions
- Other non-payment use cases

Transaction Gas Cap

Value: 30,000,000 gas per transaction

Rationale:

Increased from the previous 16,000,000 gas limit
Accommodates deployment of maximum-size contracts (24,576 bytes per EIP-170) under TIP-1000 state creation costs:
- Base transaction cost: 21,000 gas
- Calldata for initcode (up to 49,152 bytes per EIP-3860): ~500,000-800,000 gas
- CREATE base cost (TIP-1000, includes keccak/codesize fields): 500,000 gas (replaces old 32,000)
- Initcode execution: variable (~3,000 gas minimum)
- Contract code storage (TIP-1000): 24,576 bytes × 1,000 gas/byte = 24,576,000 gas
- Account creation (TIP-1000): 250,000 gas
- Total: ~25,850,000-26,150,000 gas (fits within 30M limit)

Gas Schedule Summary

Parameter	Value	Purpose
Base fee	`2 × 10^10` wei (20 gwei)	Target 0.1 cent per TIP-20 transfer
Total block gas limit	500,000,000 gas/block	Total block capacity
Non-shared gas limit	450,000,000 gas/block	Proposer pool transactions
Shared gas limit	50,000,000 gas/block	Validator subblocks (see Sub-block Specification)
General gas limit	30,000,000 gas/block	Cap for non-payment transactions
Transaction gas cap	30,000,000 gas	Allow max-size contract deployment

Economic Analysis

Fee Revenue Projections

At full payment lane utilization:

10,000 transfers per block × 50,000 gas × 20 gwei = 10^16 wei per block
At 2 blocks/second: 2 × 10^16 wei/second = ~$0.02/second (at reference pricing)
Daily: ~$1,728 in base fees from payment lane alone

Cost Per Operation

Operation	Gas Cost	USD Cost (at target base fee)
TIP-20 transfer (existing recipient)	50,000	$0.001 (0.1 cent)
TIP-20 transfer (new recipient)	300,000	$0.006 (0.6 cent)
First transaction from new account	300,000	$0.006 (0.6 cent)
Small contract deployment (1KB)	~1,800,000	$0.036 (3.6 cents)
Max contract deployment (24,576 bytes)	~26,200,000	$0.524 (~52 cents)

Invariants

Base Fee Floor: The base fee MUST NOT fall below a minimum threshold that would enable economically viable spam attacks.
Payment Lane Priority: Transactions qualifying for the payment lane MUST be able to consume up to the remaining block gas capacity (total gas limit minus gas already consumed by general transactions).
Shared Gas Pool: Proposer pool transactions (payment and general) share the non-shared gas budget (450M). General transactions are additionally constrained by general_gas_limit (30M). The remaining 50M is reserved for validator subblocks.
Transaction Gas Cap: No single transaction MUST be allowed to consume more than the transaction gas cap (30,000,000 gas).
Block Gas Validity: A block MUST be invalid if either:
- Payment lane transactions exceed the payment lane gas limit
- General transactions exceed the general gas limit

Implementation Notes

These parameters are configured at the chainspec level and applied during block validation. Future adjustments may be made through:

Hard fork upgrades (for significant changes)
Governance proposals (if on-chain governance is implemented)
Emergency response procedures (for critical security issues)

Test Cases

Base fee targeting: Verify that at equilibrium, TIP-20 transfers cost approximately 0.1 cent
Payment lane capacity: Verify that 10,000 TIP-20 transfers can be included in a single block
General gas limit: Verify that general transactions are correctly bounded by the 25M gas limit
Transaction gas cap: Verify that transactions exceeding 30M gas are rejected
Contract deployment: Verify that a 24KB contract can be deployed within the transaction gas cap
Lane separation: Verify that payment lane and general transactions are independently tracked