Concordium mainnet has activated Protocol 10 at block #43582381, recorded at 10:04 AM GMT on March 10, 2026. The main change is a new fee model: transaction costs no longer have to be paid by the sender. Instead, a sponsor can sign a separate cryptographic commitment that covers the fee for a specific transaction payload.
Two signatures now define one transaction
Under the new design, a transaction involves two distinct approvals. The sender authorizes the transfer itself, while the sponsor authorizes payment of the network fee. Concordium says both signatures are validated independently before the chain accepts the transaction, and the sponsor commitment is tied to one exact payload, which means it cannot be detached or reused elsewhere.
The issue Protocol 10 is trying to solve is not limited to wallet usability. In many payment flows, users must hold CCD solely to pay gas before they can complete a stablecoin transaction. That extra step is unrelated to the purchase, yet it often becomes the point where the payment process stops.
Stablecoin checkout is a core use case
With Protocol 10, a merchant platform can absorb the fee on behalf of the customer. The customer signs the stablecoin payment in a wallet, and no separate CCD balance is required. Concordium says sponsorship is not restricted to token transfers and can be used for other forms of network activity as well.
Fees on Concordium are fiat-pegged and settled in CCD, typically staying in the €0.01 to €0.02 range, with no congestion pricing. For companies handling large volumes of token operations, that creates a cost structure that is easier to forecast and audit.
Identity is built into the protocol layer
Concordium positions its model as different from fee abstraction on other chains because of the network’s identity layer. On many blockchains, a sponsor covers fees for an anonymous address and has little context beyond a cryptographic key. Concordium says wallets on its network are linked to verified real-world identities through a built-in ID layer that has existed since genesis.
That means a sponsor is not funding activity for a purely anonymous counterparty, but for a verified individual or entity within the system’s privacy framework. According to the project, this changes the risk profile of sponsored transactions and makes the setup more suitable for regulated environments such as financial services, e-commerce, and age-gated businesses.
P10 follows P8 and P9 in the upgrade path
Protocol 10 is the tenth evolution of the Concordium blockchain and the third step in its recent infrastructure sequence. The project says P8 focused on validator reliability so silent inactivity could no longer weaken finality without consequence. P9 introduced protocol-level tokens, bringing compliance controls and identity verification into the base protocol itself. Concordium says 10 stablecoins across 5 currencies from 3 regulated issuers are already live on mainnet.
P10 adds the payment-side piece by moving fee responsibility to the sponsor instead of the user. Concordium describes itself as a privacy-first Layer 1 built for verifiable but confidential digital interactions, with protocol-level identity and privacy features supported by zero-knowledge proof technology.