Networks & fees
Supported networks
Vela ships with 12 EVM networks built in:
| Network | Native fee token |
|---|---|
| Ethereum | ETH |
| BNB Chain | BNB |
| Polygon | POL |
| Arbitrum | ETH |
| Optimism | ETH |
| Base | ETH |
| Avalanche | AVAX |
| Gnosis | xDAI |
| Unichain | ETH |
| Tempo | USD |
| Monad | MON |
| World Chain | ETH |
Your wallet has the same address on all of them, so there’s one address to share everywhere.
You can also add custom networks (Settings → Networks). Because Vela is a smart-account wallet, a network has to provide the contracts Vela relies on — the ERC-4337 EntryPoint, the Safe contracts, and the P-256 (RIP-7212) signature precompile that verifies your passkey on-chain. Vela checks this automatically before letting you add a network.
How fees work (account abstraction)
Vela uses ERC-4337 account abstraction, so a transaction isn’t broadcast by you directly — it’s a UserOperation handed to a bundler, which submits it on-chain and is reimbursed for the gas. A few things follow from that:
- Gas is paid from your own wallet’s balance — in the network’s native token (ETH, BNB, xDAI…) by default, or in a supported stablecoin where the relay offers one; you pick the fee asset on the confirm screen. Tempo has no native coin, so gas there is always settled in USD stablecoins. There’s no ERC-4337 paymaster sponsoring — or gating — each transaction. (Vela may sponsor the one-time gas-account activation for new users; that’s separate, and covered below.)
- The bundler quotes the gas price — it is the single source of truth, and the wallet displays that quote and signs exactly what it shows. There is no speed picker: every transaction is submitted at high priority.
- The total charge is the network cost plus the relayer’s service fee, with a small minimum charge on very cheap transactions. The bundler’s quote is the price — there is no separate fee schedule to consult. One part goes to the chain’s validators; the rest pays the relayer that fronts the gas and runs the infrastructure.
- The confirm screen shows the estimated fee in the fee asset and in your display currency before you sign. The quoted amount and its recipient are part of what you sign, so the relayer is paid exactly what was shown — a changed number would invalidate your signature.
Who runs the bundler — and who gets the fees
Every network points at a bundler. By default that’s Vela’s own bundler, and you can replace the endpoint under Settings → Advanced → Service Endpoints. One endpoint applies to every built-in network; a custom network keeps the bundler URL you gave it when you added it.
An honest caveat about compatibility: the app quotes fees through a
Vela-specific RPC method (vela_getInBandGasQuote), and the send flow fails
without it. So the endpoint you point at must run vela-relay — Vela’s instance or
one you host yourself. A generic ERC-4337 bundler such as Pimlico or Alchemy doesn’t implement that method, so it won’t work end to end in the
current release.
Whoever operates the bundler for a network collects that network’s fees — the relayer markup on every transaction and the gas-account activation deposit. Run your own vela-relay and those fees fund your infrastructure instead of Vela’s; Vela takes no cut on traffic you route elsewhere.
Activating the gas account (Vela Relay)
On Vela’s bundler, your first transaction on each network activates a dedicated gas account. The app first asks the bundler’s treasury to fund it for you — this happens silently inside the send flow, and a sponsored wallet never sees a funding screen. Only when sponsorship is declined does the app show a top-up request: you send a small amount of the native token to the gas-account address it displays, and it tells you why sponsorship wasn’t available.
You pay the activation fee yourself whenever free sponsorship isn’t offered — namely when:
- Vela’s treasury for that network is empty or low — the free fund is temporarily depleted on that chain.
- You’ve used up the free quota — sponsorship is capped per wallet, so beyond the first few it’s self-funded.
- Vela’s bundler doesn’t fund that network at all — e.g. custom or test networks you added yourself, which Vela holds no treasury for. (Route these to your own or a third-party bundler if you’d rather skip activation entirely.)
The activation deposit is non-refundable — it’s the relayer’s starting balance and tops itself up from gas refunds over time, though it can still run down and need re-activating later. The relayer address can also change on a service upgrade, which needs a fresh activation.
The fee comes out of your balance in the fee asset you picked — the native token by default. If a send is blocked for gas, it means your balance in that fee asset can’t cover the fee; where the relay offers stablecoin gas, switching the fee asset on the confirm screen can unblock it.
When you send the maximum amount of a native token, Vela automatically reserves enough for gas so the transaction doesn’t fail.
How Vela talks to each network
Vela reads balances and submits transactions through a pool of RPC endpoints, not a single provider. It gathers endpoints from several sources, scores them by latency and reliability, and fails over automatically when one is slow or down — temporarily benching bad endpoints — so a single flaky node never takes the app offline.
Next: how passkeys work.