TapeFoundry
Gas model
What each step costs in gas, how it scales with the netlist, and what that means per card.
Measured per step
| Step | Gas | Scales with |
|---|---|---|
| Mint parts | ~60k base, ~20k per additional batch | Batch size, not gate count |
| Tapeout | ~2,850 per gate + ~200k base | Netlist length |
| Claim edition | ~88k | Constant |
| Approve (market or wrapper) | ~46k | Constant |
| List / delist | ~90k / ~50k | Constant |
| Wrap | ~150k | Constant |
| Unwrap | ~90k | Constant |
Why tapeout dominates
Each gate is stored as seven bytes and burned as an ERC-1155 unit. The cost is roughly linear in the netlist: a 40-gate shifter needs about 314k gas, a 2,118-gate multiplier about 6.2 million. The multiplier is 53 times the circuit and roughly 20 times the gas, because the base cost is amortised.
Cost at current network rates
At 0.05 gwei — typical for BNB Chain — gas is nearly free relative to the card:
| Drawing | Gates | Gas (est.) | Gas cost | Card total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MUL12 | 2,118 | 6,236,300 | 0.000312 | 0.049861 |
| ALU16 | 1,196 | 3,608,600 | 0.000180 | 0.028286 |
| DIV8 | 976 | 2,981,600 | 0.000149 | 0.023138 |
| MUL8 | 916 | 2,810,600 | 0.000141 | 0.021734 |
| CMP64 | 842 | 2,599,700 | 0.000130 | 0.020003 |
| CMP4 | 62 | 376,700 | 0.000019 | 0.001751 |
| EQ8 | 58 | 365,300 | 0.000018 | 0.001657 |
| SUB4 | 51 | 345,350 | 0.000017 | 0.001493 |
| ADD4 | 46 | 331,100 | 0.000017 | 0.001376 |
| MUL2 | 43 | 322,550 | 0.000016 | 0.001306 |
| SHIFT4 | 40 | 314,000 | 0.000016 | 0.001236 |
Card totals are the price plus fees, in BNB. Gas is added on top and paid to the chain.
What moves the number
- Network base fee — BNB Chain is usually 0.05–1 gwei; a 20× move still leaves gas small relative to a card.
- Netlist size — the dominant term for large drawings.
- First-time approvals — 46k the first time, near-zero afterwards.
Batching
Buying several copies mints parts once, then pays tapeout and claim per card. The saving is in the parts mint, not in the card steps: each card is a separate token and a separate registry entry.