Gas Sponsorship for Token Transfers Without Native Gas

TL;DR: Vaultody gas sponsorship lets one funded address pay network fees for token transfers sent from any other address in the same vault, on Ethereum, Base, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism and Solana.

Deposit flows follow a familiar routine. A customer sends a token to a fresh deposit address. Before you can sweep it, that address needs native coin for gas. So you send ETH first, wait for it to confirm, and only then move the token. Each top-up adds a transaction to sign and a step that can fail. It also leaves native-coin balances scattered across addresses you would rather not track.

Gas sponsorship removes the top-up step. You keep native coin in one designated address per chain. That address acts as fee payer and covers the network cost while the token moves from the sender address. The deposit address never needs to hold native coin to send.

Any address in a vault can sponsor any sender in that vault

The sponsor relationship is defined inside the vault. Any vault address can act as fee payer for any other address in the same vault, provided it holds the native coin of that chain. You choose which address plays that role.

Two operations expose this: a sponsored single transfer (gas-sponsorship-transfer) and a sponsored batch. Both run on Ethereum, Base, BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism and Solana. If you recently added Arbitrum, Optimism and Base to your stack, the same model applies on each, with one funded sponsor per network.

For a sweep job, the change is small. You name a sender such as <deposit-address>, a recipient such as <treasury-address>, an amount and a fee payer such as <sponsor-address>. The native-coin top-up and the wait for its confirmation drop out of the pipeline.

EVM chains use EIP-7702; Solana uses its native fee-payer slot

The mechanism differs by chain family because the protocols differ.

On Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains, sponsorship uses Ethereum Improvement Proposal 7702 (EIP-7702). The sender signs an authorization once. After that, the sponsor signs the transaction and pays the gas. The token leaves the sender address. The native fee leaves the sponsor address.

On Solana, every transaction already names a fee payer. Vaultody places the sponsor address in that native fee-payer slot and signs the transaction in two multi-party computation (MPC) rounds. No protocol extension is involved. This is how Solana transactions are built.

Sponsorship does not change who controls the keys

Every signature in a sponsored transfer, sender and sponsor alike, comes from the same signing scheme as any other Vaultody transaction. Each vault key is split 3-of-3: two shares on Vaultody nodes and one mandatory share held by you. Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) signing, used on EVM chains, runs on DKLS23. Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA) signing, used on Solana, runs on FROST. Key material sits in hardware security modules (HSMs).

The consequence for your threat model is direct. A sponsor address is not a privileged hot wallet outside your controls. Vaultody cannot move funds from it alone, and Vaultody never holds your funds. You remain custodian of record for the sponsor and for every sender it pays for. If your team is new to the model, review how MPC wallets work before designing sponsor topology.

Five constraints decide how you deploy it

• The sponsor must sit on the exact chain and network. A funded address on Ethereum mainnet cannot pay for a transfer on Base, on Polygon or on an Ethereum testnet. Plan one sponsor for each chain and network you operate on.
• The fee payer must differ from the sender and hold native coin. An address cannot sponsor itself. A sponsor without native coin cannot pay fees. Build your own balance monitoring for each sponsor address and treat it as an operational dependency.
• No gross amounts. Sponsorship cannot be combined with gross-amount transfers. Choose one fee model per transfer.
• Default vaults only. Sponsorship is available in DEFAULT vaults. Check vault type before you design the flow.
• Not in Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS) embedded wallets. If your end users hold embedded wallets through WaaS, sponsorship is not available for those wallets.

Gas sponsorship FAQ

Can one address sponsor gas on multiple chains

No. The sponsor needs an address on the exact chain and network of the transfer. A sponsor on Ethereum mainnet pays only for Ethereum mainnet transfers, so you fund one sponsor per chain and network.

Do deposit addresses still need ETH to send tokens

Not for sponsored transfers on supported EVM chains. The sender signs a one-time EIP-7702 authorization, and the sponsor signs and pays the gas. Only the sponsor address needs native coin.

Does gas sponsorship work with batch transfers

Yes. A sponsored batch operation runs alongside the single sponsored transfer. Both cover Ethereum, Base, BSC, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism and Solana.

Does gas sponsorship support Tron

Tron is not among the chains covered by sponsored transfers. For Tron, Vaultody offers a separate TRON fee optimization that discounts network cost by 5%, 10% or 15%, by plan.

Adopt it if you sweep many addresses; skip it if you integrate by xpub

Gas sponsorship fits teams that run many deposit or user addresses inside a default vault and move tokens out of them on Ethereum, Base, BSC, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism or Solana. The change on your side is concrete: fund one sponsor per chain and network, monitor its balance, and remove the top-up step from your sweep pipeline. Read the specification on the gas sponsorship feature page, then create an account to test a sponsored transfer.

It is not for extended public key (xpub) integrations. Addresses connected by xpub pay their own gas. It is also not a fit for WaaS embedded wallets or for flows that depend on gross-amount transfers.