Zero gas and the journey to 'mass-adoption'

Zero gas can be the solution to help billions of people access crypto easily.
When users pay on the phone, whether via bank, Momo, Zalo, or ShopeePay... everything happens quickly and smoothly. They do not need to care about transaction fees or any technology or process behind it.
This is a necessary element for an application to be widely popular. This also applies in the crypto market - where the keywords "blockchain", "gas fees", "miners" ... cause headaches for new users. They have to learn, learn many steps, and even pay to transact on the blockchain. This creates a huge wall preventing people from entering the crypto market.
In August 2023, Visa tested multiple methods to make paying gas fees on the Ethereum blockchain easier. "This process is too complicated for most users," a Visa representative shared.
In addition, the amount of gas fees needed to pay for a transaction on some blockchains is also very high. Whether accidentally or intentionally, many users have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in gas fees, especially on the Ethereum blockchain, which owns the most applications in the crypto market today.
High gas fees not only cause inconvenience to users, it also makes it difficult for the projects themselves to operate. Many developers have had to find ways to transfer smart contracts of their projects to other cheaper blockchains.
With that, the Zero gas solution was born to help users simplify the process of participating and using blockchain applications.
Zero gas - Solution to the 'mass-adoption' problem
"Mass-adoption" refers to the widespread acceptance of blockchain technology and crypto assets around the world. Part of this vision can be realized if transactions on the blockchain are made fast and free.
With Zero gas, the project will pay transaction gas fees on behalf of users, thereby helping to increase user activity and increase revenue.
Thanks to that, individual users can transact and interact with decentralized applications (DApps) quickly and with near-zero fees, similar to the way they transact bank transfers. For businesses, they can also conduct large volume transactions without worrying about skyrocketing costs.
This has great significance in the crypto market - where transactions are carried out quickly and across borders. With Zero gas, the barrier to entry is lowered, the number of crypto users can quickly reach billions.
Assets can now be traded between countries and continents quickly and easily, facilitating trade, macroeconomic development and ultimately opening a new era for humanity.
Leading projects in this field also have a great advantage when providing what the market needs, thereby attracting the necessary number of users for development. They also help users reduce gas fees, thereby increasing retained profits.
Because this is a new technology, the number of projects applying Zero gas is quite limited. However, the potential that this technology brings to projects is significant.
Leading projects in the field of Zero gas
Blockchain Viction
One of the first technologies that Ninety Eight integrated into Blockchain Layer 1 Viction (formerly TomoChain) is Zero gas.
Viction pays gas fees to users through the smart contract VRC25 Issuer contract. This smart contract requires the project to deposit VIC tokens, then use these tokens to pay for user transactions.
When users interact with projects on the Viction blockchain, these projects will interact with the VRC25 Issuer contract and this contract will require the project to deposit VIC to pay gas fees to users. Thanks to that, users can experience Web3 smoothly and quickly without worrying about transaction fees.
In the near future, the Zero gas feature on Viction will not only support users sending C98 but also apply to stablecoins such as USDT, USDC... Users will now have a similar experience to paying via Momo, Zalo...
To protect the Viction blockchain from being exploited by bad guys, the Ninety Eight team does not commit to supporting Zero gas for all products but only commits to providing gas financing solutions. The Viction and Ninety Eight systems also have a firewall underneath, which is a protective barrier before interacting on the on-chain contract.
Currently, Viction's ecosystem includes many pieces: bridge (VICBridge), DEX (LuaSwap), infrastructure (VICRelayer), token issuer (VICIssuer)...
SKALE Network
Skale is a project applying Zero gas technology on Ethereum. Skale supports multi-chain interoperability through blockchains called Skale Chains, allowing DApps built on Skale to interact with multiple blockchains.
“Skale has a built-in on-chain payment method, paying validators to validate blocks and secure the network. Most blockchains force end users to pay validators through transaction/gas fees, which causes friction and hinders growth. Meanwhile, Skale allows applications to directly prepay validators to subsidize gas fees for users,” Jack O'Holleran, co-founder of Skale Labs shared with Blockworks.
As of 2024, with a total of 20 Skale chains and more than 10 million transactions, Skale has helped users save 32,351 ETH in gas fees, equivalent to 53 million USD. Skale's Zero gas experience has attracted many GameFi projects such as Block Brawlers, Crypto Colosseum and CryptoBlades to its ecosystem.
Kaleido
Kaleido is an infrastructure project that allows developers to create blockchain on Ethereum with Zero gas feature. Thanks to this, blockchain developers do not need to build this technology themselves.
Kaleido has the strength to cooperate with many famous brands in Web2 such as Sony, Pepsi, HSBC, Swift, Amazon Web Services... Cooperation projects with Kaleido can easily expand its user base through relationships. Kaleido's existing system. With Kaleido, developers can launch NFT platforms, digital asset platforms, CBDCs…
Although there have been initial developments, Zero gas technology is still very new. Projects applying Zero gas still face many challenges during implementation, for example, the transition to zero gas fees must be balanced with ensuring the security, decentralization and sustainability of the blockchain network.