Synthetic Transactions on Sei

Sei supports synthetic transactions—Cosmos-originated operations that are wrapped and surfaced through the EVM RPC layer. These include association flows, governance events, and distribution payouts. This guide explains how they appear through JSON-RPC and how to index them correctly after v6.1.11.

Key Properties

Association Flow (sei_associate)

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "sei_associate",
  "params": [
    {
      "custom_message": "Link my account",
      "r": "0x...",
      "s": "0x...",
      "v": "0x1c"
    }
  ]
}

• Sends a synthetic transaction without gas fees; verification happens in the Cosmos ante handler.
• Resulting logs appear under sei_seiAssociation with synthetic: true.
• Indexers should persist the association tuple (seiAddress, evmAddress) and treat the event as finalized once included in a block.

Indexing Strategy

1. Use sei_getLogs to fetch both EVM and synthetic logs.
2. Filter by { synthetic: true } to isolate Cosmos-originated events.
3. Store synthetic logs in a parallel table if you need to keep them separate from EVM logs.
4. Cross-reference with the Cosmos module (e.g., Distribution) for additional metadata when necessary.

Interaction With Gas Accounting

• Synthetic envelopes do not alter receipt gasUsed (see rpc-gas-accounting).
• When computing block-level gas metrics, exclude synthetic logs entirely; they are informational signals only.
• Estimating gas for synthetic flows is unnecessary—sei_associate and similar methods are processed outside the EVM gas model.

Troubleshooting