Understanding Transaction Gas & Priority on OP_NET
On OP_NET, every transaction pays two fees in satoshis:
- Gas Fee – covers execution and on‑chain data storage.
- Priority Fee – an optional tip to miners for faster inclusion.
Use this guide to see how these fees work together and where they go.
1. Gas Usage
- Every transaction on OP_NET requires a certain amount of gas to execute
- The gas amount is proportional to the computational resources consumed by the transaction.
- Transactions with higher gas usage are more resource-intensive, which impacts their priority in the mempool.
2. Priority Fee
- Users can include a priority fee in their transaction to boost its priority in the network
- Transactions with higher priority fees are more likely to be included in the next block.
tip
To ensure your transaction is processed promptly, consider including a priority fee, especially during periods of high network activity
3. Fee Burning
- No redistribution: All gas and priority fees are sent to “dead” contract addresses and removed from circulation.
- Why burn fees: Prevents re‑use or gaming of the fee pool, ensuring a fair, one‑way payment for network resources.
4. Best Practices
- Simulate gas: Use OP_NET’s gas estimator tools before sending real transactions.
- Adjust tips: Watch Bitcoin mempool metrics and raise your priority fee when blocks fill up.
- Bundle operations: Combine multiple contract calls into one transaction to save on base fees.
- Optimize contracts: Write efficient Wasm code and minimize on‑chain data to reduce gas usage.