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02 Guides
The network matters more than the asset sent.
Sending $200 of USDT costs three cents or eight dollars, and arrives in fifteen seconds or in an hour, depending on the network taken and nothing else. It is the most profitable parameter to understand before a first top-up — and the one that causes permanent losses when you get it wrong.
In brief
For a top-up of $50 to $300, take a stablecoin on TRC-20, BEP-20, Solana or Polygon: a few cents of fees, a minute of waiting. Above $2,000 the network matters little — a few dollars become negligible. Always check the network before confirming: a correct address on the wrong network loses the funds, with no warning at all.
Orders of magnitude
- The cheapest
- < $0.01
- The most expensive
- $2 to $15
- The fastest
- ≈ 15 s
- The slowest
- 10 to 60 min
- Networks accepted
- 11
Why the network and not the asset
The same stablecoin exists on several chains. USDT circulates on Tron, on Ethereum, on BNB Chain, on Solana — the same value, but different tokens, on different ledgers, with transfer costs that bear no relation to one another. The cost does not come from what you send: it comes from the price of a place in the next block of the chain you take.
The mistake that costs everything
An Ethereum address and a BNB Chain address are written exactly the same way, character for character. Sending on the wrong chain triggers no warning: the transaction succeeds, and the funds land on an address nobody controls on that network. Recovery is sometimes possible when the destination chain is compatible and the recipient holds the keys; often it is not. It is irreversible, and that is the nature of a blockchain, not a commercial policy.
The fees we never collect
Network fees — Ethereum gas, Tron energy, Bitcoin miner fees — are paid by your wallet directly to the chain, before we see anything. We do not mark them up and we never receive them. On small amounts they weigh heavily: it is one of the reasons for the $50 floor.
Your exchange's fees
If you send from a centralised exchange, it often charges its own withdrawal fee — sometimes a flat amount, sometimes unrelated to the real network cost. It regularly exceeds the cost of the chain, and sometimes our own commission. Check before sending: it is often the most expensive item of the operation, and the only one nobody warns you about.
A worked example
A $200 top-up in USDT on TRC-20. Your wallet pays roughly $1.10 in network fees to Tron. We receive $200, take 1.5% — that is $3.00 — and credit $197.00. The total cost of the operation is therefore $4.10, or 2.05% of the amount sent. The same top-up in USDT on Ethereum would cost between $2 and $15 in network fees depending on congestion, without changing the amount credited in any way.
Memos and tags
Some chains — TON in particular — use a memo or a tag in addition to the address. If your wallet asks for one, it is shown on the invoice and must be copied exactly. A deposit without a memo is not lost, but it needs manual reconciliation, which takes days instead of seconds.
The network comes before the address. Before confirming a transfer, read the network again, not the address. It is the only check that counts, and the only one no tool will do for you.
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