Networks & fees
Built-in networks
Vela has 24 networks built in, all mainnets:
| Network | Gas paid in | Network | Gas paid in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | ETH | Arc | USDC (the native coin) |
| BNB Chain | BNB | X Layer | OKB |
| Polygon | POL | Stable | USDT0 (the native coin) |
| Arbitrum | ETH | Soneium | ETH |
| Optimism | ETH | MegaETH | ETH |
| Base | ETH | Robinhood Chain | ETH |
| Avalanche | AVAX | Mantle | MNT |
| Gnosis | xDAI | Kaia | KAIA |
| Unichain | ETH | Celo | CELO |
| Tempo | pathUSD (no native coin) | Ink | ETH |
| Monad | MON | Plume | PLUME |
| World Chain | ETH | XRPL EVM | XRP |
On most of them you can also pay the fee in a USD stablecoin the relay accepts on that network (see below).
Your wallet has the same address on every network, because the address is computed from your keys, not from the chain.
Adding another network
You can add any EVM network under Settings → Networks, provided it has what
a Vela wallet needs: twelve standard contracts (the ERC-4337 EntryPoint v0.7,
the Safe v1.4.1 contracts, Safe’s 4337 and passkey modules, MultiSend,
Multicall3 and two deterministic deployers) and the EIP-7951 / RIP-7212 precompile that
verifies passkey signatures at address 0x100. The wallet checks all of them,
including a real signature check against the precompile, before it lets you
add the network. The precompile has two names: EIP-7951 on Ethereum, live since
the Fusaka upgrade (December 2025), and RIP-7212 on rollups. The interface is the
same, and the wallet accepts either.
The precompile is a hard requirement. Its address is part of how every Vela address is computed, so there is no fallback verifier and no way to deploy one later. If a chain has the precompile but is missing some of the contracts, chain setup shows what is missing and deploys what anyone can deploy. Two of the twelve contracts it checks — Safe’s passkey signer factory and the signer code that factory deploys — matter only to a wallet holding more than one key, and the check says so per contract: without them a one-key wallet works normally, while a wallet whose address came from two to seven keys cannot be deployed on that network at all.
How a transaction is paid for
Vela is an ERC-4337 wallet: you don’t broadcast a transaction yourself. The app builds a UserOperation, you sign it with one of your keys, and a relay submits it on-chain and pays the gas up front. (ERC-4337 calls this role a bundler.) The relay gets paid back inside your operation: the payment is a transfer from your wallet to the relay that sits in the same batch as your transaction, so it is covered by your signature. There is no paymaster, nobody sponsors your gas, and nobody can refuse your transaction because of a sponsorship policy.
What the fee is
The confirm screen shows one amount, in the fee coin and in your display currency. It is calculated like this:
- Gas the wallet reserves. The wallet simulates the transaction and reserves more gas than it expects to use: the verification and execution estimates are each raised by half, with minimums (for example, verification is at least 300,000 gas once the wallet is deployed, and 2,000,000 for the transaction that deploys it).
- Gas price. The higher of the wallet’s own reading of the network’s gas price and the relay’s price for the speed you chose. The default speed is fast, which the relay prices at about 1.8 × the base fee plus twice the priority fee.
- Fee = 3 × reserved gas × gas price, with a minimum of about $0.01. On Tempo the multiple is 2 and the fee is paid in pathUSD.
The reserve is padded well above what the transaction will use and the price includes headroom, so the fee is more than the transaction costs on-chain — more again for your first transaction on a network, which also deploys your wallet. The relay pays the real cost and keeps the rest; nothing is refunded. On cheap networks this is cents; on Ethereum mainnet it can be a real amount. You never have to guess: the exact amount is on the confirm screen before you sign.
Who gets it. The fee goes to whoever runs the relay the wallet is set to — Vela’s unless you change it. Any vela-relay deployment works, including one you run yourself, and the wallet uses the same formula whichever relay you pick.
What you can pay with
- The network’s native coin, always.
- A USD stablecoin from the relay’s list for that network, when the relay can price the native coin. Stablecoins you hold none of are hidden.
- On Tempo, which has no native coin, pathUSD only.
You choose the fee coin, and the speed (slow, standard or fast), on the confirm screen and in Settings.
Your first transaction on a network
You can receive on any network before your wallet exists there. The first time you send from a network, that transaction also deploys your wallet contract (and one small signer contract for each extra key). The deployment gas is included in that transaction’s fee, so the first send on each network costs more than the ones after it.
When you send the maximum of a native coin, Vela keeps back enough for the fee.
Who runs the relay — and who gets the fee
By default every network uses Vela’s relay, and the fee goes to Vela. You can point the wallet at a different relay under Settings → Advanced → Service Endpoints; one address serves every built-in network, and a custom network keeps the relay address it was added with. The relay must be vela-relay — Vela’s or one you run — because the wallet asks for its fee quote with a Vela-specific method that generic bundlers such as Pimlico or Alchemy don’t implement. Whoever runs the relay you use receives the fee; the self-hosting guide explains how to run one.
The relay receives an operation that is already signed. It cannot change the recipient, the amount, the fee or anything else. It can delay or refuse it, and it chooses when it lands — so for a swap it could, in principle, trade ahead of you within your slippage.
When a relay runs out of gas
A relay pays gas from its own treasury on each network. If that treasury is empty, the send stops at Continue — before anything is signed — and shows the treasury’s address with a button to copy it (and, in the web wallet, a QR code), how much it has against how much it needs, and in which coin:
- On a network Vela’s relay serves, the relay’s operator (Vela) needs to top it up; you can report it. If you can’t wait, you can optionally send a small amount of the native coin to the treasury yourself. That contribution is non-refundable and does not pay for your own transaction.
- On a network you added, funding the relay is up to whoever runs it — which may be you.
The wallet checks again every few seconds while that screen is open. Once the treasury is funded it carries on by itself; on the confirm screen it only closes the notice, because signing is always yours to start.
There is no per-wallet gas account and no activation deposit: an earlier version of Vela had one, and it no longer exists.
When a relay can’t reach a network
A relay can only serve a network it can read. When it can’t, the send stops at Continue and says so — funding would not help.
- On a network Vela ships, that is the operator’s to fix; you can report it.
- On a network you added, the relay reads it through the RPC address you set for
it, so that address has to be a public
httpsone. A node on your own computer or local network (localhost,192.168.…) can only be served by a relay running beside it — see running your own relay.
How Vela reads each network
Vela reads balances and simulates transactions through a pool of RPC endpoints per network — the built-in ones, public fallbacks, and any provider keys or endpoints you add — and moves to the next one when an endpoint is slow or down. You can set your own endpoint per network under Settings → Networks, in every app.
The relay is sent the RPC address the wallet uses for a network — including any API key in it — with every request, so it can reach the network you use. The wallet says so where you set an address or a provider key; see the privacy policy.
Next: how passkeys work.