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PulseChain went through four testnet versions, and at the time, the gas cost for a transaction was counted in fractions of PLS. When it launched on May 13, the cost started rising, and after the XEN launch, most people who didn’t sacrifice and had no PLS were quickly stopped from doing transactions. Here we explain what PLS gas is, how to calculate the cost, and how to track it.
What is PLS gas
Gas is a fee you pay toPulseChain validatorsfor including your transactions in blocks. Each of your transactions requires gas, and its cost depends on the network usage by the global population. If the usage is high, the gas prices will go up, and they will go down when the activity on the blockchain is low. It also depends on the type of contract you’re interacting with. Some contracts are more expensive in terms of computational power than others.
The fee can be adjusted manually in your wallet’s settings; however, users are normally presented with a fee automatically calculated for them. The fee is nothing more than your bid for the block space for your transaction.
Each block has a limited space, which inPulseChainis set at 15 million MB and expandable to 30 million MB. When many people try to enter a block, this space becomes scarce, and the cost rises. In high-traffic network conditions, only transactions with the highest gas have priority. This leads to users conducting a bidding war, raising their gas prices further, resulting in gas prices skyrocketing.
How is the gas fee calculated
Gas is paid in PLS, which is the native coin of PulseChain. Each PLS can be divided into fractions just like the dollar can be divided into cents.
1 PLS = 1,000,000,000 Beats or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 Impulses
Gas is counted in beats, where 1 beat = 0.000000001 PLS. For example, a gas fee of 30 beats = 0.000000030 PLS.
The gas fee is calculated according to the following formula:
Total Gas Fee = Gas units (limit) x (Base fee + Tip)
- Gas limit.
The gas limit is the price for including your transaction in the blockchain. Even if you set a very high gas limit, PulseChain validators will process your transaction using what’s needed and no more, and the difference will be refunded to your wallet. On the other hand, if you set the gas limit too low, your transaction may fail and you may lose your gas. This is because the validators spent computational energy on calculations, but the gas wasn’t enough to finish the job. It’s best not to set this fee lower than it is.
- Max Base fee.
This fee is dependent on network conditions. It’s burned as part of a deflationary mechanism built into the PulseChain system and the EIP-1559 model. It is the minimum amount of gas you need to expend to see your transaction included on PulseChain. It’s dynamically adjusted depending on the traffic. You can set this fee lower than the automatic input if you think that the traffic conditions on the network will go down while you wait for it to process. If you set it higher than presented, then your transactions will be included faster but at a higher cost.
- Tip or Priority fee
PulseChain validators are driven by profits, which is why they validate transactions that have the highest tips first.
Here we show an example of the total gas fee formula for sending a coin.
I want to send you 1 PLS, and the average amount of gas required to transfer PLS on PulseChain is 25,200 units. This is the gas limit. The minimum amount of gas required to send the transaction at the time (base fee) is 6901070 (gwei) beats. I add a tip of 1.5 gwei (beats).
In this case, the total cost of sending 1 PLS is 25,200 * (6901070 gwei + 1.5 gwei).
The total gas fee is 173,907,001,800 gwei, or 173.9 PLS per simple coin send transaction.
Where to track gas fees
On this gas tracker, it’s possible to see average historical gas prices for each hour of the day. Darker red lines show higher prices. You’ll notice that the prices change a lot, and there’s not a stable pattern yet. On Ethereum, gas prices are usually low on the weekends, but on PulseChain, there’s no rule yet. The gas tracker predicts the PLS gas price based on pending transactions in the PLS mempool. Based on this forecast, you can decide if you want to use Slow, Rapid, Fast, or the Standard price. Your MetaMask will automatically show you the standard price, but you can change it in the advanced gas settings.
Another good tool for gas tracking is PLS Burn, where you can find a chart in PLS, beat, and dollar values. At the time of writing, at 6,238,370 beats, or 131 PLS ($0.01), sending a transaction is 59 times cheaper than on Ethereum. On Ethereum, it now costs 36 gwei ($1.37). This tracker shows you not only the average price of gas, but it also gives information on the current cost for a swap on PulseX, send PLS, and send a PRC-20 token. Below the chart, you’ll also see the comparison with the current prices on Ethereum.
How to spend less on gas
As long as the initial chaotic situation on PulseChain doesn’t settle down a bit and the gas price pattern emerges, it will be difficult to predict the price. Observe the gas historical chart and try to enter when you see a pattern emerge. If you insert your own gas setting, don’t deviate too much from the current prices, although 3 million down is currently an acceptable correction. It may take a few hours for a transaction to fill, but if you’re not in a rush and you care about lowering your cost, then send it and wait.
