TRON Gas Free Transfers Are Not Actually Free

On February 25th, TRON founder Justin Sun announced the new "Gas Free" feature, which aims to enable USDT transfers on the TRON network without requiring TRX.

However, after testing the Gas Free feature in the TronLink wallet, we found that it is significantly more expensive than the standard USDT transfer using TRX as the transaction fee.

Hidden Costs Behind "Gas Free" Transfers

New Receiving Address Requirement. When using the Gas Free feature, users are assigned a new TRON receiving address for incoming USDT tokens. This additional step may cause inconvenience for users accustomed to their existing addresses.

Activation Fee. Upon topping up the new address, users must pay a one-time "Activation Fee" during their first USDT transfer. This fee amounts to 10 USDT.

Transaction Fee Per Transfer. In addition to the activation fee, a "Transaction Fee" is charged for every transfer, which is also 10 USDT. Initially, we assumed that this fee would decrease to zero after the first transaction, but our second transfer was still charged the same 10 USDT transaction fee.

Comparison with Standard TRX-Fee Transactions

For comparison, a standard USDT transfer using TRX as a fee was 13.84 TRX, which is approximately $3.26. This is significantly lower than the combined costs of the Gas Free feature.

Conclusion

Despite its name, the TRON Gas Free feature is far from being cost-effective. The high activation and transaction fees make it a much more expensive option compared to the traditional TRX-based transaction fees. Users should carefully evaluate these costs before opting for this new feature.