ETHGas has successfully raised $12 million in a seed funding round, spearheaded by Polychain Capital, with participation from Stake Capital, BlueYard Capital, Lafayette Macro Advisors, SIG DT, and Amber Group. This funding coincides with the launch of Ethereum's first block space futures market by ETHGas, backed by approximately $800 million in liquidity commitments from validators and block builders. The funding, which was structured as a token round via a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT), began in July and concluded last month. ETHGas had previously secured an undisclosed pre-seed round of around $5 million in mid-2024, also using SAFTs.
The ETHGas platform aims to transform Ethereum block space into a predictable and tradable commodity. It enables users to trade block space in advance, allowing validators to capture MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) and increase earnings. The platform also seeks to enhance the Ethereum ecosystem by enabling block fragmentation, potentially multiplying throughput by 100-200 times. ETHGas allows the advance buying and selling of block space up to 12.8 minutes ahead. This helps validators increase MEV earnings and allows traders and institutions to hedge against gas costs, congestion, and price volatility.
Ethereum's co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, has proposed an onchain futures market for gas fees to address user concerns about future transaction costs. This market would allow users to prepay for gas at fixed prices in specific time intervals, reducing uncertainty. Buterin's proposal mirrors traditional futures markets, enabling speculation and planning for gas costs. He suggests that an onchain gas futures system would give users the ability to lock in gas prices for future time windows, offering greater certainty as Ethereum scales.
ETHGas operates a futures market for Ethereum block space, enabling pre-purchase and pre-sale of capacity instead of only bidding at block generation. Block space denotes the capacity in an Ethereum block, dictating transaction inclusion, order, and cost. The platform charges a 5% fee on transactions and is gradually advancing Ethereum's "real-time execution" architecture. ETHGas now operates two parallel models: one that allows traditional MEV players to continue operating, but at higher costs that benefit validators, and another that aims to eliminate MEV entirely through real-time sequencing.
Buterin believes that a well-established and dependable futures market would be an important yardstick for the ecosystem to speculate, plan, or expand on. With ETHGas, the goal is to turn blockspace from a frantic fee auction into a predictable, tradable commodity for users, apps, and institutions.
