StablecoinsWhat is TRC20?

What is TRC20?

TRC20 is the token standard on the Tron blockchain: a set of rules a smart contract follows so wallets and exchanges can hold and move its token the same way they move any other. The best known TRC20 token is Tether's USDT, and Tron holds 52.1% of all USDT today, according to DefiLlama.

By Onchain Wiki editors · checked November 9, 2026, 11:17 UTC

What the TRC20 Network Means

The TRC20 network is the Tron blockchain itself, used through its TRC20 token standard. Tron does not run a separate TRC20 chain. When an exchange offers "USDT (TRC20)" as a withdrawal option, it means the coins move on Tron as a TRC20 token, and the receiving address has to be a Tron address.

Tron's developer docs describe TRC-20 as the fungible token standard on Tron, where fungible means every unit is interchangeable with every other.¹ Any contract that implements the required functions and events counts as a TRC20 token, so wallets and exchanges can list it without custom code.

TRC20 tokens run inside the Tron Virtual Machine (TVM), the part of Tron that executes smart contracts. The token's balances live in its contract, while the network's own coin, TRX, pays the fees.

How TRC20 Compares With ERC20

TRC20 is Tron's version of ERC20, the Ethereum token standard, and Tron's docs call it fully compatible with ERC20 at the interface level. Tron also says the bytecode is compatible, so most Solidity ERC20 code runs on Tron with small changes.¹

The required interface on Tron's TRC-20 protocol page has six functions and two events, the same set ERC20 uses:

totalSupply and balanceOf report how many tokens exist and how many an address holds.
transfer moves tokens from the caller to another address.
approve, allowance and transferFrom let one address authorize another, often an app's contract, to move a set amount.
Transfer and Approval are the events explorers read to show token history.

Name, symbol and decimals are optional extras that nearly every token sets. Decimals are typically 6 or 18. With 6 decimals, 1 token equals 1,000,000 base units on chain. The difference from ERC20 is the chain, the address format and the fee model, which the next sections cover. The ERC20 page explains the Ethereum side.

TRC20 vs TRC10 on Tron

TRC20 and TRC10 are both Tron token standards, but TRC10 is built into the Tron protocol itself while TRC20 tokens are smart contracts in the TVM. Tron's docs say each account can issue only one TRC10 token, the current Mainnet issuance fee is 1,024 TRX, and they recommend TRC20 for new token projects.³

For USDT the question does not come up: Tether lists USDT on Tron as a TRC20 token.

TRC20 Address Format: Why It Starts With T

A TRC20 address is a Tron address, and in the form wallets show it is 34 characters long and starts with the letter T. Tron's accounts and keys page explains why: every address is a 21-byte value whose first byte is 0x41, and written in Base58Check that prefix comes out as a leading T.

The same address also has a hex form of 42 characters that starts with 41. Developers see that form in raw API data, while wallets and explorers show the T form. There is no separate "TRC20 address": the Tron address that holds TRX also holds every TRC20 token, and the wallet address page covers how addresses work across chains.

Tron uses the same secp256k1 curve as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the 20 bytes after the 41 prefix match the Ethereum address made from the same public key. That shared math does not make the two networks interchangeable. A T address on Tron and a 0x address on Ethereum are different accounts on different chains, and tokens sent to the wrong one do not arrive where the sender meant. The wrong network guide covers what can and cannot be done after a mistake.

TRC20 Fees: Energy, Bandwidth and TRX

TRC20 fees are paid in TRX through two resources, Energy and Bandwidth, rather than one gas price. Tron's resource model page defines them this way:⁵

Bandwidth pays for the size of a transaction in bytes. Every activated account gets 600 free Bandwidth, which refills gradually over 24 hours.
Energy pays for smart contract computation. A TRC20 transfer is a contract call, so it always needs Energy, and Energy has no free quota.

An account gets Energy and extra Bandwidth by staking TRX or by receiving them from another account through delegation. When it has neither, the network burns TRX from the sender instead. Tron's fee page lists the burn rates as 100 sun per Energy (0.0001 TRX) and 1,000 sun per Bandwidth (0.001 TRX), where a sun is the smallest unit of TRX. Both rates are chain parameters that can change by vote, and Tron's node API showed the same values on November 8, 2026.⁷

Bandwidth has one rule that surprises people. Each source has to cover a transaction's whole byte cost on its own: staked Bandwidth first, then free Bandwidth, then a TRX burn for the full amount. The network does not mix sources. Energy works more loosely, and a contract's deployer can even choose to pay part of the Energy for every call, a setting Tron's docs say has no Ethereum equivalent.

Typical TRC20 Transfer Fee Today

A typical TRC20 transfer of USDT used 64,285 Energy and about 345 Bandwidth in our November 8, 2026 sample of every USDT transfer in Tron block 87,834,339, read through Tron's TronGrid API.⁸ Of 39 transactions, 35 single transfers used 64,285 Energy, 3 used 130,285 and one bundle of three transfers used 220,896.

Turned into TRX, that depends on what the sender holds:

No staked Energy or Bandwidth: one sampled transfer burned 6,773,500 sun, about 6.77 TRX. A 130,285 Energy transfer at the same rates comes to about 13.37 TRX.
Enough staked or delegated Energy: no TRX burned for Energy. The 600 free Bandwidth covers the byte cost of one transfer of that size per refill period. 36 of the 39 sampled transfers burned no TRX for Energy.

TRX trades at $0.3173 on CoinGecko at this check, so the dollar cost moves with the TRX price as well as with the burn rate. Wallets show the estimate before you confirm, and that estimate is the number to trust for your own transfer.

USDT and Other TRC20 Tokens

USDT is the largest TRC20 token by value, and Tether lists its Tron contract as TR7NHqjeKQxGTCi8q8ZY4pL8otSzgjLj6t on its supported protocols page. Always copy the full address, every character, from Tether's list or your wallet's verified token entry.

Tron's node API returns the name Tether USD, symbol USDT and 6 decimals for that address, and CoinGecko lists the same contract for Tether on Tron.¹⁰ Tether also lists its Mexican peso and offshore yuan tokens on Tron as TRC20 tokens.

Today $92.2 billion of USDT sits on Tron, 52.1% of the $176.8 billion in circulation, against $67.6 billion on Ethereum, according to DefiLlama.¹¹ The USDT TRC20 page covers sending it step by step, and the USDT explainer covers Tether's other networks.

Questions People Ask About What is TRC20

These are the questions people ask next about what is trc20.

Is TRC20 the same as Tron?

TRC20 is not a separate chain from Tron: it is the token standard that runs on the Tron blockchain. Choosing TRC20 on an exchange means the token moves on Tron, and the receiving address must be a Tron address that starts with T.

Do I need TRX to send TRC20 tokens?

You need TRX to send TRC20 tokens unless you already have staked or delegated Energy. A TRC20 transfer is a contract call that uses Energy, which has no free quota, so the network burns TRX from your balance to cover it when you lack Energy.

What does a TRC20 address look like?

A TRC20 address looks like any Tron address: 34 characters starting with the letter T, such as the USDT contract TR7NHqjeKQxGTCi8q8ZY4pL8otSzgjLj6t. It is the same address that holds TRX. Ethereum addresses start with 0x and belong to a different network.

Can I send TRC20 USDT to an ERC20 address?

You cannot send TRC20 USDT to an ERC20 address and have it arrive on Ethereum. A TRC20 transfer only moves on Tron. To move USDT between the two networks, the receiving platform has to support Tron, or the coins go through a service that supports both.

Why do TRC20 fees change?

TRC20 fees change because they depend on three things: whether the sender has staked or delegated Energy, the burn rates set by Tron chain parameters, and the TRX price. Some transfers also use more Energy than others, as our November 8, 2026 sample showed.

Sources

Every number on this page comes from these sources, checked November 9, 2026.