Every USDT transfer on Tron pays for computation. Stakers produce that computation every day and most of it goes unsold, while users burn TRX at the network's full price. Below are the numbers, each with its source, and what we are building about it.
A USDT transfer is a smart-contract call, and every call consumes energy. A wallet that has none burns TRX instead, at a price the network sets by vote.
2026-10-16 transfers. 1 TRX = 1,000,000 sun. TRX at $0.3181049. "Would need" is our arithmetic: every transfer at 64,285 units, about 88% of the daily limit.
Staked TRX earns a share of the network's daily energy and also earns votes. Delegating the energy to someone else leaves the stake, and its votes, with the staker.
Energy per TRX = 180,000,000,000 ÷ 18,471,847,893, read 2026-10-31. It falls as more TRX is staked. Stake grants TRON Power; only unstaking reclaims it11.
Stakers who rent today do it through platforms. The platforms do real work: they find buyers and run delivery. They also keep a large share of what the buyer pays.
| Venue | Buyer pays | Provider keeps | Minimum term |
|---|---|---|---|
| JustLend56 | 49.93 sun / unit / day | 80% | 3 hours |
| TronSave7 | market quote | 75% | by order |
| Burning TRX2 | 100 sun / unit | n/a | none |
JustLend: 0.499253 TRX per 10,000 energy a day, read 2026-10-31.
A payment desk moving 7,000 transfers a day needs about 455 million units of energy. It can stake for itself, burn, or stitch together small packages with no firm price.
We built an open hourly index for one wholesale lot: 20,000,000 units of energy for one hour, enough for about 300 transfers. It prints a price only when at least three venues can fill that size. Today, almost every hour it would print none.
| Venue | Can it fill 20M for 1 hour? |
|---|---|
| TronSave | ✓ Yes, with depth in its API |
| TronBid | ✕ Largest public package about 1,048,000 units |
| GetBlock | ✕ Largest page tier 540,000 units |
| NetTS | ✕ Needs a key; caps an order at 3,000,000 |
| JustLend | ✕ Minimum rental is 3 hours |
From the index methodology and venue checks10.
Retail energy is easy to buy. Firm, large lots that the chain guarantees are not sold anywhere. That is the gap.
Take a staker with 200,000,000 units of energy a day it does not use. That takes 20.52 million TRX of stake. Here is what renting it pays at JustLend's live price, through a platform and sold direct.
| Through JustLend | Direct, 2% fee | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider share of 49.93 sun | 80% | 98% |
| Rent a day, all sold | 7,988 TRX | 9,785 TRX |
| Rent yield on the stake, all sold | 14.2% | 17.4% |
| Rent yield at today's 19% utilisation | 2.7% | 3.3% |
| Kept by selling direct, a year | 656,018 TRX · about $208,700 | |
Our arithmetic from [2], [5], [6], [9]. The rent yield is on top of the 3.01–3.33% voting reward, which delegation keeps. The 2% fee is our draft, not a final term.
Supply is not what is missing. Buyers who can reach it in firm, large lots are. A better fee only matters once the energy sells.
The staker keeps its TRX, its votes and its keys. Buyers get a firm price for a firm quantity. Most of the work is done by software agents.
We would rather say this now than after you have signed up.
We are looking for one Super Representative or large staker to supply the pilot, and one payment desk to buy from it. If your energy sits idle most of the day, we would like to run the numbers on your own wallets with you.
usdt_transaction for 2026-10-16, read 2026-10-31.getEnergyFee 100, getTotalEnergyLimit 180,000,000,000) and wallet/getaccountresource (TotalEnergyWeight 18,471,847,893), read 2026-10-31. Formula: Tron resource model.rentInfo: priceFor10KEnergByRent 0.499253 TRX, totalDelegatedEnergyTrx 951,467,857.64, totalDelegatedEnergyRate 0.19029; read 2026-10-31.rentReserveFactor 0.2 from the sTRX API, read 2026-10-20.annualizedRate of the 27 Super Representatives, 3.01 to 3.33%, read 2026-10-31.