Universal Gas: Pay Fees with Any Token on Any Chain

You’re trying to swap tokens on Arbitrum, but you don’t have enough ETH for gas. You’ve got plenty of USDC sitting right there in your wallet, but it’s useless, you need the native token to pay fees. So you have to stop, bridge some ETH over, wait for confirmations, and then finally execute your original transaction. By the time you’re done, the opportunity you wanted is probably gone.

This is one of those friction points that makes multi-chain DeFi feel broken. You shouldn’t need to hold seven different native tokens just to use seven different networks. Mono Protocol solves this with a universal gas blockchain system that lets you pay gas with any token on any chain.

The Gas Token Problem Nobody Talks About

Every blockchain requires its native token for transaction fees. Ethereum needs ETH. Polygon needs MATIC. Avalanche needs AVAX. This creates a cascading set of problems that get worse the more chains you use.

• First, there’s the capital inefficiency. You need to maintain gas token balances across every chain you interact with, which means locking up capital in assets you don’t actually want to hold.
• Then there’s the UX disaster. New users face a catch-22: they need the native token to do anything, but getting that token requires doing something. If you receive USDC on a new chain, you literally can’t move it without first acquiring gas tokens somewhere else.

For developers, this creates a massive onboarding barrier. Every new user needs native tokens before they can even try your product. That’s friction you can’t afford when competing for attention.

The current “solution” paymasters and relayers only works in limited contexts. They’re expensive to run, complex to integrate, and often come with centralization trade-offs that defeat the purpose of using crypto in the first place.

How Universal Gas Actually Works

Mono Protocol’s gas fee solution Web3 developers have been waiting for doesn’t rely on centralized relayers or per-chain workarounds. Instead, it uses a unified system that works across all networks simultaneously.

When you initiate a transaction through the Mono Protocol gas system, you can pay fees with any token you hold, regardless of which chain you’re transacting on. Want to pay Arbitrum gas fees with USDC? Done. Want to use DAI to cover Base transaction costs? No problem.

Behind the scenes, Mono’s solver network handles the conversion. Solvers compete to fulfill your transaction, accepting payment in whatever token you specify. They handle the native token requirement on the backend, invisible to you.

This isn’t just a convenience feature. It fundamentally changes how cross-chain transaction fees work by removing the coordination burden from users and shifting it to infrastructure where it belongs.

The Architecture That Makes It Possible

Mono’s account architecture is built around unified balances and coordinated execution. Your Mono Balance tracks all your assets across every chain as a single sum per token. When you need to pay gas, the system can draw from any of those balances automatically.

Resource Locks guarantee execution parameters upfront. When a solver commits to fulfilling your transaction at a specific gas cost in your chosen token, they’re cryptoeconomically bound to deliver. No bait-and-switch, no failed transactions because gas prices moved.

This protection against MEV and execution uncertainty matters because traditional gas payment systems expose you to frontrunning. Bots can see your transaction, drive up gas costs, and force you to overpay. Mono’s approach eliminates that attack vector entirely.

Liquidity Locks enable instant settlement without waiting for cross-chain confirmations. Solvers provide liquidity immediately, backed by collateral, which means your transaction executes in seconds rather than minutes.

Real Impact Across the Stack

For users, this means one less thing to think about. You can interact with any protocol on any chain without maintaining gas token reserves everywhere. Your USDC balance is sufficient to operate across the entire ecosystem.

For developers, onboarding becomes dramatically simpler. New users don’t need a tutorial on acquiring native tokens, they can start using your dApp immediately with whatever assets they already have.

For protocols, integrating Mono’s universal gas system creates monetizable network effects. You earn revenue share from transaction volume flowing through your integration while simultaneously improving user retention.

The Broader Chain Abstraction Picture

Universal gas is one component of Mono’s larger chain abstraction strategy. By unifying per-token balances across chains and enabling instant, MEV-resilient execution, Mono makes the entire multi-chain experience feel like using a single network.

You get transactions up to 40% faster than legacy cross-chain routes. Execution is guaranteed with zero reverts, if a solver commits, they deliver. And costs stay lower because there’s no value leakage to MEV or bridge fees eating into every transaction.

The liquidity locks system ensures capital efficiency across the network. Liquidity providers earn yield by participating in Mono’s solver network, creating sustainable economics that don’t depend on unsustainable incentives.

MONO Token: The Engine Behind Universal Gas

The MONO token powers this entire system. It’s used for paymaster services, routing optimization, and creating Resource Locks that guarantee execution. Operators stake MONO to participate in network security, and solvers lock MONO as execution bonds.

This design aligns incentives across all participants. Solvers are motivated to provide efficient execution because their locked collateral is at stake. Operators secure the network because they earn fees from successful transactions. Users benefit from competition among solvers driving down costs.

What This Means for Multi-Chain DeFi

The pay gas with any token capability isn’t just a feature, it’s a fundamental rethinking of how blockchain infrastructure should work. Users shouldn’t need to understand the technical requirements of each chain they interact with. They should just use their assets, and the infrastructure should figure out the rest.

Mono Protocol delivers on that vision. Your crypto becomes truly portable across all chains, gas tokens stop being a barrier to entry, and the entire ecosystem becomes more accessible to everyone.

This is how chain abstraction creates real value: by removing friction points that seemed inevitable but were really just design limitations waiting to be solved.