Sokipiriye Dokubo
According to Tron founder Justin Sun, the new mechanism would enable the transfer costs to be covered by the stablecoins themselves. On July 6, Sun announced on the social media platform X that his team is working on enabling gas-free peer-to-peer (P2P) stablecoin transfers.
In his announcement, Sun explained that this development would allow stablecoin transfers to occur without the need to pay gas tokens, with fees being entirely covered by the stablecoins themselves. However, he did not provide details on how this gasless mechanism would function.
Sun revealed that the feature would first be implemented on the Tron blockchain, followed by support for Ethereum and all Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible networks. He expressed hope that his team would launch the feature in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Sun believes that gasless stablecoin transfers could significantly boost the mass adoption of stablecoins. He stated:
“I believe that similar services will greatly facilitate large companies in deploying stablecoin services on the blockchain, elevating blockchain mass adoption to a new level.”
On June 27, blockchain analytics firm Artemis highlighted in a post on X that Tron has seen “consistent growth” across all stablecoin metrics, with its circulating supply recently reaching an all-time high (ATH) of $60 billion. Artemis also noted that the number of addresses using stablecoins on Tron is at an ATH. Additionally, Tron leads in terms of P2P stablecoin transfers, with transfers on Tron being two to three times higher than those on Ethereum, according to Artemis.
The data, according to Artemis, suggests that “Tron is facilitating more payments and money transfers compared to DeFi activity.”
Tron’s innovation of gasless stablecoin transfers could position it as a potential competitor to PayPal-issued stablecoin PYUSD. PayPal currently enables certain U.S.-based users to transfer stablecoins across borders for free. Another potential competitor is Circle’s USD Coin (USDC), the second-largest stablecoin after Tether (USDT). USDC transfers are gasless on Ethereum layer 2 blockchain Base, developed by Circle, using the Coinbase wallet.
In addition, Tron is considering developing a Bitcoin layer 2 network that would support a wrapped version of Tether. This innovation could potentially allow millions of dollars to enter the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Sun’s announcement follows the discontinuation of USDC support on the Tron network by Circle and Binance.