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Gas is essential to the Parallax network. It is the fuel that allows the protocol to operate, in the same way that a car needs gasoline to run.

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Prerequisites

To better understand this page, we recommend you first read up on transactions and the Parallax Virtual Machine.

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What is gas?

Gas refers to the unit that measures the amount of computational effort required to execute specific operations on the Parallax network. Since each Parallax transaction requires computational resources to execute, those resources must be paid for to ensure the protocol is not vulnerable to spam and cannot get stuck in infinite computational loops. Payment for computation is made in the form of a gas fee. The gas fee is the amount of gas used to do some operation, multiplied by the cost per unit gas. The fee is paid regardless of whether a transaction succeeds or fails. Gas fees have to be paid in Parallax’s native currency, LAX. Gas prices are usually quoted in gwei, which is a denomination of LAX. Each gwei is equal to one-billionth of a LAX (0.000000001 LAX or 10-9 LAX). For example, instead of saying that your gas costs 0.000000001 LAX, you can say your gas costs 1 gwei. The word ‘gwei’ is a contraction of ‘giga-wei’, meaning ‘billion wei’. One gwei is equal to one billion wei. Wei itself (named after Wei Dai) is the smallest unit of LAX.

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How are gas fees calculated?

Parallax uses the legacy gas auction model and explicitly rejects EIP-1559. This means there is no base fee burn and no mandatory protocol-defined base fee. Instead, gas fees are determined by the simple market dynamics of supply and demand. When you submit a transaction, you specify two values:
  • Gas limit – the maximum units of gas the transaction can consume.
  • Gas price – how much LAX per unit of gas you are willing to pay.
The total fee you pay is: gas used * gas price Miners will prioritize transactions offering higher gas prices, as these maximize their block rewards.

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Example

Jordan needs to pay Taylor 1 LAX. A standard LAX transfer requires 21,000 units of gas. Jordan sets a gas price of 10 gwei. The fee is: 21,000 * 10 gwei = 210,000 gwei (0.00021 LAX). When Jordan sends the transaction:
  • Jordan pays 1.00021 LAX in total.
  • Taylor receives 1.00000 LAX.
  • The validator receives the fee of 0.00021 LAX.
No portion of the fee is burned — all fees go directly to the miner.

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Gas limit

The gas limit is the maximum amount of gas a user allows their transaction to consume. More complex transactions involving smart contracts require higher gas limits than simple transfers.
  • If you set the limit higher than required, the unused gas is refunded.
  • If you set it too low, the transaction will fail or run out of gas, consuming whatever gas was spent before halting.
For example, sending LAX with a gas limit of 50,000:
  • The VM consumes 21,000 gas.
  • You are refunded the remaining 29,000 gas.
But if you only provided 20,000 gas, the transaction would fail and all 20,000 gas would be consumed.

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Why do gas fees exist?

Gas fees are a critical part of Parallax’s security model:
  • They prevent spam by making large-scale transaction flooding expensive.
  • They ensure that infinite loops or computational waste in smart contracts do not stall the network.
  • They incentivize validators by rewarding them for including transactions.

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Why can gas fees get high?

Gas fees rise when demand for block space exceeds supply. If many users compete for inclusion in the next block, they increase their gas price bids to outcompete others. More complex dapps and smart contracts may also consume more gas, adding to fee pressure.

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Reducing gas costs

Several strategies exist to reduce gas costs:
  • Optimize smart contracts to minimize unnecessary computations and storage.
  • Batch transactions where possible.
  • Use efficient dapp design to lower per-user costs.
Future Layer 2 scaling solutions and protocol improvements may further reduce fees and increase throughput.

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Further reading

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