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Arc’s stable fee design eliminates the volatility of gas costs and ensures predictable, auditable transaction fees. As a developer, you benefit from fees denominated in USDC, a protocol-level smoothing mechanism, and flexible paymaster services.
On Arc, the base fee is designed to remain around one cent (≈ $0.01) per transaction on average. This target embodies Arc’s guiding principle of “1 cent, 1 second, 1 click”, making onchain finance as fast, simple, and affordable as the internet itself.

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USDC as unit of account

Arc uses USDC as the native gas token instead of a volatile cryptocurrency. This eliminates the need to manage token price swings and simplifies accounting. On most blockchains, you pay gas in a volatile token (for example, ETH on Ethereum). That means the real cost in dollars can fluctuate based on token price and network demand. On Arc, the gas unit is pegged to USDC, which is designed to stay stable at 1 USD. As a result:
  • You can estimate fees in advance in dollar terms.
  • You don’t need to hold volatile tokens just to pay gas.
  • Accounting and treasury processes are simpler, because the unit of value you transfer and the unit you pay in are the same.
For example, if a transaction requires g gas units, the fee is: 
fee = g × base_fee_in_USDC
The base fee is set in USDC, so you avoid the market volatility of a token-based gas fee. The only variable is block space demand, which Arc mitigates using a smoothing mechanism.

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Fee smoothing mechanism

Arc’s fee market builds on Ethereum’s EIP-1559 but changes how the base fee adjusts. Instead of recalculating fees every block, Arc uses an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) of block utilization. This means:
  • Fees adjust gradually, not abruptly.
  • Short-term demand spikes have less impact.
  • Base fees remain bounded, keeping costs low and predictable.
For developers, this means you don’t need complex fee estimation logic. You can expect stable base fees over time, even under varying network load.

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Stablecoin fee payments

Arc plans to expand how transaction fees can be paid by designing new mechanisms that:
  • Accept fees in stablecoins beyond USDC, including EURC, USDT, MXNB, and others.
  • Sponsor user transactions by paying fees on their behalf.
  • Programmatically define custom fee rules, such as discounts or subsidies.
Stablecoin fee payment support is on the roadmap and not yet available on Arc.
This flexibility improves usability for global users who may not hold USDC directly, and allows you to build gasless experiences or multi-currency apps without complex workarounds.

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Developer benefits

By building on Arc’s stable fee design, you gain:
  • Predictable, dollar-based transaction costs: typically around 1 cent per transaction.
  • Stable fees despite network congestion.
  • Reduced integration friction for enterprise and fintech use cases.
  • Flexibility to sponsor fees or accept multiple stablecoins without custom workarounds.
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