Base vs Arbitrum vs Tron for sending stablecoins: fees and timing

When you deposit to Fundly you choose a chain, and the choice affects two things: how much the network charges to move your money, and how long you wait before the balance is spendable. We support nine chains at launch, but for stablecoin deposits three of them account for almost all of the traffic we expect: Base, Arbitrum and Tron.

During August we sent test deposits of 100 USDT or USDC across each of them, several times a day, from ordinary wallets, and logged the fee and the time to credit. This post is what we found. The numbers are from our own logs and will drift as networks change, so treat them as a snapshot, not a schedule.

The short table

Fees are the network fee paid by the sender. Fundly's own deposit fee is separate and the same on every chain: 1 percent with a 1 EUR minimum on the Free plan at launch, 0.5 percent on Plus, 0 percent on Premium.

Base

Base is an Ethereum layer 2. In our logs the median fee to send USDC was well under a cent, and the worst we saw during a busy period was about three cents. Blocks are two seconds apart and we credit after a short confirmation window, so a typical deposit was spendable in under a minute.

The catch is the gas token. You need a small amount of ETH on Base to pay the fee, and people who receive USDC on Base from a friend or an app sometimes have none. A few cents of ETH lasts for dozens of transfers, but you do need to get it once.

If you already use a wallet on Base, this is the cheapest and simplest option we offer.

Arbitrum

Arbitrum is also an Ethereum layer 2 and behaves much like Base from a deposit point of view. Fees were slightly higher in our logs, one to five cents, mostly because of what was happening on Ethereum mainnet at the time. Timing was the same: under a minute to credit in almost every case.

The reason to pick Arbitrum over Base is simply that your stablecoins are already there. Arbitrum has a large DeFi ecosystem, and a lot of people hold USDC or USDT on it from lending or trading. Moving to Base first just to save a cent is not worth the bridge.

Tron

Tron is where a large share of the world's USDT actually moves, especially for payments between individuals and exchange withdrawals. Nearly every exchange offers USDT withdrawals on Tron, and clients in many countries will default to it without asking.

The fee model is different. Tron charges for bandwidth and energy, which you can either pay in TRX or cover by staking or renting energy. Paying with TRX for a USDT transfer cost us between 1 and 4 USD across the month, with a lot of variation. Users who rent energy for a few cents pay almost nothing, but that is a step most people do not bother with.

Timing was slightly slower than the two layer 2s because we wait for more confirmations on Tron before crediting. Still comfortably under two minutes in every test.

If a client says "I will send USDT", assume they mean Tron unless they say otherwise, and confirm before sending an address.

What about Ethereum mainnet?

We support it, and we do not recommend it for stablecoin deposits. During our test month a USDC transfer on mainnet cost between 1 and 12 USD depending on the hour. There is no benefit to the deposit from the higher fee. If your stablecoins are on mainnet and you plan to deposit regularly, it is worth bridging once to Base or Arbitrum.

Polygon, Solana and BNB Chain

All three were cheap and fast in our tests, in the same range as Base. We left them out of the headline comparison only because they are less common for the deposits we expect. If your money is already there, use them. There is no penalty.

Three practical rules

Use the chain your money is already on. Bridging to save a cent costs more than the cent, in time and in bridge risk.

Check the address matches the chain. Base and Arbitrum addresses look identical because both are EVM chains. Sending USDC to your Fundly Base address on the Arbitrum network will not arrive as a normal deposit and recovery is slow. The Fundly dashboard shows the chain name next to every address. Read it.

Keep a little gas. A few cents of ETH on Base or Arbitrum, or a few TRX on Tron, means you are never stuck with stablecoins you cannot move.

How we chose confirmation counts

A note on the timing column, because people ask. We credit a deposit once the chance of the transaction being reversed is negligible, and each chain finalises differently. For the layer 2s we wait a short window after the transaction is included. For Tron we wait for a block count that has been standard among exchanges for years. For Bitcoin we wait longer than anyone likes, because a reversal there is expensive to undo.

We tune these as we learn, and the dashboard always shows the current target next to the address before you send.

What changes over time

Fees on all three chains move with demand. Base and Arbitrum fees rise when Ethereum is busy. Tron's energy market has its own cycles. We will rerun this test every few months and update the table. If you notice a big difference between what we published and what you paid, tell us and we will check our numbers.

Ready to pick a chain and send? Join the waitlist at /join.