Transaction times and fees

Fees

Squid currently charges no fees. The user will only pay gas fees on source and destination chains.

It is possible for our partners to charge fees via our SDK or API. Partners can elect a % fee they would like to charge, and Squid will receive a portion of this fee.

Source Chain transactions

EVM

Fees are comprised of the following and are paid in Native Gas

Gas amount needed for any swaps, approvals and transfers
If the "from token" is the Native gas token, this amount is also added to the gas payment
The execution fees for the destination chain

Cosmos

Cosmos transactions are different to EVM transaction as the destination chain gas fees are taken out of the bridge token. e.g for a route that is Osmo:Osmosis > ETH:Ethereum, usually the bridge token will be axlUSDC, and this is where the GMP (bridge) fee will be taken from. If the route is axlWETH > WETH the fee will be taken in WETH. Gas payment for source chain will be only the amount needed for the execution on the Cosmos chain, all IBC relaying comes at 0 cost.

General message passing fees (swap on destination chain)

Just like the source chain transactions, the amount gas charged is calculated base off how many swaps, transfers and approvals there are.

For transactions where there is a swap on the destination chain, fees are paid using the Native token on the source chain. This fee is paid to Axelar's relayers, who trustlessly pass messages and proofs across chains.

Axelar's relayers hold gas on every chain and provide a pricing API which Squid calls to get the expected gas price for a trade. For example if the destination trade will probably cost 50 cents of AVAX in gas, then Squid will instruct the user to pay Axelar's gas service 50 cents worth of Moonbeam, as per the pricing which Axelar gives our backend.

What happens in the case of a spike in gas fees

If the cost of gas on the destination chain doubles while your cross chain transaction is being approved by Axelar, there is a chance you will either need to wait for the gas prices to lower again, or you will need to add gas to your transaction. The best way of doing this is by going to AxelarScan and searching for your transaction, using the transaction hash from the source chain. AxelarScan will show a call to action to "Add gas" where you can login with Metamask, or the relevant wallet, and help get your transaction to the finish line.

Squid also plans to expose the ability to add gas to a transaction by wrapping the Axelar SDK.

Boost Fees

Boost fee is a small dynamic premium that can be optionally paid for faster cross-chain bridge transactions, this is a service provided by Axelar (express), Axelar's relayers will determine if enough gas is paid to be boosted. The amount can vary dependant on the current price of gas. Details of the boost pice can be found on the Squid widget details page or the Squid API response. For more information read about boost here:

CCTP Noble Fees

CCTP bridge is not considered a transfer and there is no fee for this.