Proposal: Increase Secret Network Minimum Gas Fees

Secret Governance
1

Secret Network has operated with essentially the same gas-fee tiers for roughly three years. Given the substantial movement in SCRT’s price and the recent increase in token supply, I would like to start a discussion on raising the network’s minimum gas-fee tiers.

At present, transaction-fee revenue is approximately $100–$200 per month. This amount is not materially meaningful for the network’s finances and does not move the chain toward long-term sustainability.

Current costs

Using the average tier of 0.1 uSCRT/gas, estimated transaction costs are currently:

Transaction Fee in SCRT Approx. USD cost
SCRT transfer 0.001274 SCRT $0.000013
Wrap 0.007406 SCRT $0.00013
SNIP-20 transfer 0.009494 SCRT $0.00017
ShadeSwap swap 0.141457 SCRT $0.0025

For context, a SNIP-20 transfer is currently around 15× cheaper than an ERC-20 transfer on Arbitrum, based on the comparison used here.

Suggested new tiers

I propose a minimum 5× increase, broadly corresponding to the recent approximate increase in supply. In particular, the low tier should be brought closer to 1/2 of the average tier rather than remaining at 1/8.

Tier Current gas price Proposed gas price Change
Low 0.0125 uSCRT/gas 0.25 uSCRT/gas 20×
Average 0.1 uSCRT/gas 0.5 uSCRT/gas 5×
High 0.25 uSCRT/gas 1.25 uSCRT/gas 5×

Arguments for Higher Fees

  • Sustainability: The network is currently far from fee profitability. A long-term goal should be for transaction fees to cover at least a meaningful portion of validator operating costs.

  • SCRT demand: Transactions require SCRT for gas. A higher level of on-chain economic activity expressed in SCRT creates more structural demand for the token.

  • Spam resistance: When SCRT falls in dollar terms while nominal gas prices remain unchanged, the real cost of executing transactions drops. Extremely cheap blockspace raises the risk that spam or abusive traffic becomes economically viable.

  • Better alignment with resource use: Secret transactions—especially privacy-preserving contract operations—consume scarce validator and enclave resources. Fees should reflect that cost more credibly than fractions of a cent.

Arguments Against Higher Fees

  • Usage sensitivity: Secret Network’s on-chain usage is already on the ground. Raising fees could discourage users, applications, and developers.

  • IBC relay costs: Higher fees increase the operating cost of IBC relayers. This should be manageable through the validator program, or alternatively could be subsidized through staking rewards or an SNF.

5 Likes
2

I don’t understand why this hasn’t gotten more views/criticism. I’m new to the community. Interested in being a part of this new infrastructure. I will be taking notes in the meantime about what this community has done/plans to do. Life isn’t always about staying on top, but rather showing resilience in the midst of captivating troubles. It’s not necessarily about the fall itself, but rather how the entity recovers from the fall, after the fact. I’m here for the ride now.

That being said, this seems like a great framework to alleviate load off the demand for fees. Leveraging some of that gain back into the network, at least until some sort of remediation begins to be visible.

3 Likes
3

If there is no further discussion within a week, I will launch a Signal proposal to increase fees as above.

At the same time, I will propose an increase in the minimum deposit for governance proposals.

Normal proposal: 1,000 SCRT → 5,000 SCRT
Expedited proposal: 2,500 SCRT → 12,500 SCRT