[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":19},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-content-en-what-is-a-paymaster":3},{"slug":4,"title":5,"excerpt":6,"description":7,"bodyHtml":8,"faqItems":9},"what-is-a-paymaster","What Is a Paymaster? Pay Gas in a Token, Not the Native Coin","A paymaster is the ERC-4337 component that pays a transaction's native gas for you and charges you a different way — often in an ERC-20 token. Here's how it works, where it works, and what to trust.","A clear technical explainer of paymasters: how ERC-4337 lets you pay gas in a token instead of the native coin, the paymaster types, and the trust trade-offs.","\u003Ch2>The native-gas problem\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>Every blockchain wants to be paid in its own coin. To move a token on Ethereum you need ETH; on Polygon you need POL; on Arbitrum, Base and other L2s you still settle in ETH; on Solana you need SOL; on TON you need Toncoin. That native asset is what the network charges to include your transaction in a block, and there is no getting around it at the protocol layer — validators are compensated in the chain's own unit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For users this creates a familiar and annoying failure mode. You hold a stablecoin or a token you actually care about, you try to send it, and the transaction reverts because you have zero of the native coin. You end up buying, bridging, or keeping a small \"gas float\" of ETH, POL, SOL and Toncoin scattered across chains just to be able to move everything else. It is friction that has nothing to do with what you were trying to do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>What a paymaster is\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>A \u003Cem>paymaster\u003C\u002Fem> is a component defined by \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-is-erc-4337\">ERC-4337, Ethereum's account-abstraction standard\u003C\u002Fa>. Its job is narrow and useful: it pays a transaction's native gas \u003Cem>on your behalf\u003C\u002Fem>, and then charges you for it in some other way. The network still receives its ETH (or POL, or whatever the chain's coin is) exactly as before — the paymaster is the party that actually hands it over. What changes is who you settle with and in what currency.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Mechanically, ERC-4337 routes transactions as \"user operations\" through a shared on-chain contract called the EntryPoint. When a user operation names a paymaster, the EntryPoint asks that paymaster contract to agree to cover the gas before execution. If the paymaster approves, it fronts the native gas; afterward the accounting is settled according to the paymaster's own rules. The chain sees a normally-funded transaction; you never had to hold the native coin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>The three common paymaster types\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>Paymasters are just smart contracts, so their policies vary, but most fall into three buckets. A \u003Cem>verifying paymaster\u003C\u002Fem> agrees to sponsor a transaction only if it carries a valid signature from an off-chain service — useful when a dapp wants to approve specific actions or specific users under its own logic. A \u003Cem>sponsored paymaster\u003C\u002Fem> (often the same machinery) simply eats the gas so the end user pays nothing, which is how \"gasless\" onboarding and free in-app actions are built.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The type most relevant to everyday users is the \u003Cem>ERC-20 token paymaster\u003C\u002Fem>. Here the paymaster pays native gas up front and, in the same transaction, deducts an equivalent amount of an ERC-20 token from you — \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fblog\u002Fcan-you-pay-gas-fees-with-usdt-usdc\">letting you pay fees in USDT, USDC, or another token\u003C\u002Fa> instead of the native coin. The paymaster quotes a token-to-gas rate (typically from an oracle plus a small margin), takes its cut in tokens, and settles the network in the native asset. From your seat, you spent one token and never touched ETH.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>The flow: token in, native gas out\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>Follow a single transfer end to end. You sign a user operation that says, in effect, \"move my tokens, and let this paymaster handle gas.\" The EntryPoint checks that the paymaster will pay. The paymaster confirms it can charge you — say, in USDC or another ERC-20 — and deposits native coin to cover the estimated gas. Your operation executes. On completion the EntryPoint deducts the real gas cost from the paymaster's deposit, the paymaster pulls the agreed token amount from you, and the block producer is paid in the native coin as always.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The key invariant is that \u003Cem>the network is never shortchanged\u003C\u002Fem>. A paymaster does not make gas free-in-aggregate or bend the fee market; it only reshuffles who pays and in what denomination. The native coin still flows to validators underneath. This is why the model is trustworthy at the protocol level even when the user experience feels like magic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>Where it works: EVM and the non-EVM analog\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>ERC-4337 is an \u003Cem>EVM-only\u003C\u002Fem> standard. It works across Ethereum and EVM-compatible L1s and L2s because they all run the same EntryPoint-and-paymaster machinery. As of 2026 it is worth noting that EIP-7702 lets ordinary externally-owned accounts temporarily act like smart accounts, which widens where paymaster-style sponsorship can apply — but the paymaster concept itself still lives inside the EVM account-abstraction world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Non-EVM chains reach the same outcome by a different route. On Solana and TON there is no ERC-4337, so an equivalent \u003Cem>fee-payer\u003C\u002Fem> or \u003Cem>relayer\u003C\u002Fem> plays the paymaster's role: a Solana transaction can designate a separate fee-payer account that signs and covers the SOL, and TON's message model lets a relayer front Toncoin. The label differs, but the principle is identical — a third party settles the native gas so the user can pay another way. When you read \"paymaster\" for a non-EVM chain, mentally substitute \"fee-payer\u002Frelayer.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>Benefits, risks, and what to trust\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>The benefits are concrete: no scattered gas floats, one-token or zero-token user experiences, and onboarding flows where a newcomer can transact before they have ever bought the native coin. For anyone managing assets across several chains, collapsing \"what do I pay gas in\" to a single answer removes a real class of stuck-transaction errors.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The trade-offs are worth naming. A token paymaster sets the exchange rate you pay, so its oracle and margin matter; a poorly-priced or downtime-prone paymaster can quote you badly or fail to sponsor. Sponsored paymasters can run out of deposit. And any paymaster is a smart contract with its own trust surface — you are relying on its code and its operator's policy, not just on the base chain. None of this touches custody: a paymaster pays your gas, it does not hold your keys or your funds. Account abstraction changes how fees are paid, not who owns the assets.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>How WATS uses this\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>WATS puts this model to work directly: in the WATS Hot Wallet every action — transfers, swaps, staking — is charged in a single token, ATS, instead of the chain's native gas. On EVM chains that is done with an \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fats-fee\">ERC-4337 paymaster\u003C\u002Fa> (and via an equivalent fee-payer\u002Frelayer on Solana and TON), so the network still receives its native gas underneath while you only ever spend ATS. Because ATS is a LayerZero OFT, one balance covers gas across EVM, Solana and TON, and collected ATS is burned from 100M toward a 30M floor — the combination that makes \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fhot-wallet\">WATS\u003C\u002Fa> the first and only wallet to pair ERC-4337 + OFT single-token fees, charged instead of native gas, with that burn. WATS is non-custodial throughout: you hold your keys, and WATS never holds a key. For the full breakdown, see \u003Ca href=\"\u002Fblog\u002Fats-fee-model-explained\">how the ATS fee model works\u003C\u002Fa>.\u003C\u002Fp>",[10,13,16],{"q":11,"a":12},"Does a paymaster mean I never pay gas?","Not exactly — it means you may not pay gas in the native coin. A sponsored paymaster can make a transaction free for you by covering the gas itself, while an ERC-20 token paymaster still charges you, just in a token like USDC instead of ETH. In every case the network is still paid its native gas underneath; the paymaster is simply the party that fronts it.",{"q":14,"a":15},"Does using a paymaster or smart account give up custody of my funds?","No. A paymaster only pays a transaction's gas and charges you a different way; it does not hold your keys or take control of your assets. Account abstraction changes how fees are settled, not who owns the funds. A non-custodial wallet remains non-custodial whether or not it uses a paymaster.",{"q":17,"a":18},"Do paymasters work on Solana and TON?","The paymaster standard itself, ERC-4337, is EVM-only, so it does not run on Solana or TON. Those chains achieve the same result with an equivalent fee-payer or relayer: a separate account signs and covers the native gas (SOL or Toncoin) so the user can pay another way. The mechanism differs by chain, but the user-facing outcome is the same.",1784634268969]