The Future of Gas Markets: Demand Shifting and Sponsor Strategies

Gas fees are a tax on user intent, not a payment for execution quality. Users pay for wasted block space due to MEV and inefficient bundling, creating a ~$500M+ annual inefficiency.

• Key Benefit 1: Separates payment for inclusion from payment for execution.
• Key Benefit 2: Enables demand shifting to cheaper execution layers via intents.

Shift from transaction-based to intent-based architectures. Users declare what they want, solvers compete to fulfill it optimally, abstracting gas and MEV.

• Key Benefit 1: ~15-30% better prices via MEV capture redirection.
• Key Benefit 2: Gas sponsorship becomes a solver cost, enabling seamless cross-chain UX.

Decouples gas payment from the user's wallet. Sponsors (dApps) pay gas in any token, enabling gasless transactions and sticky user acquisition.

• Key Benefit 1: ~40% lower user drop-off by removing upfront ETH requirements.
• Key Benefit 2: Creates a B2B SaaS model for gas, a $100M+ revenue opportunity.

Gas markets are siloed. These protocols abstract gas payment across chains, allowing a single transaction to fund execution on multiple, heterogeneous networks.

• Key Benefit 1: Enables single-chain UX for multi-chain operations.
• Key Benefit 2: Unlocks demand shifting to the cheapest chain for each computation step.

Protocols spend millions on liquidity incentives and gas rebates with zero attribution. They cannot measure ROI or prevent sybil attacks on their subsidies.

• Key Benefit 1: On-chain attribution for every subsidized transaction.
• Key Benefit 2: Dynamic subsidy optimization based on real-time user LTV.

Turn gas sponsorship into a programmable primitive. Build restaked rollups or app-chains with native, verifiable subsidy logic baked into the protocol's economic layer.

• Key Benefit 1: Enables hyper-targeted airdrops and loyalty programs.
• Key Benefit 2: Creates sustainable L2 business models beyond sequencer fee extraction.

ERC-4337 and AA wallets solve UX but not economics. They shift gas burden to dApps, creating a $1B+ annual subsidy war. This is unsustainable and centralizes power with the deepest pockets.

• Key Risk: Winner-take-all subsidy battles.
• Key Insight: True abstraction must shift demand, not just pay for it.

Move from transaction execution to outcome declaration. Protocols like UniswapX, CowSwap, and Across let users specify a goal (e.g., 'best price for 1 ETH'), and solvers compete off-chain. This decouples user cost from on-chain volatility.

• Key Benefit: ~20-40% better execution prices.
• Key Benefit: Gas becomes a solver's problem, not the user's.

Follow the LayerZero and Polygon model. Paymasters and sponsors validate user intent off-chain and batch settlements. This creates a B2B gas market where sponsors monetize through order flow and cross-sell.

• Key Metric: >70% of gas can be sponsored in high-volume dApps.
• Key Insight: Gas becomes a customer acquisition cost, not a tax.

Future gas markets will price based on extractable value, not just congestion. Build systems that identify and capture back-run or arbitrage MEV to fund user transactions. This turns gas from a cost into a potential revenue stream for the sponsor.

• Key Benefit: Negative effective gas fees for users.
• Key Tool: Integration with Flashbots SUAVE or private RPCs.

Gas price is no longer one-dimensional. Build oracles that aggregate prices across intent solvers, sponsor networks, and L2s. This creates a competitive market for execution, similar to 1inch Fusion or CowSwap's solver competition.

• Key Metric: ~500ms latency for cross-domain gas quotes.
• Key Benefit: Drives efficiency and reduces sponsor overhead.

The ultimate abstraction: gas futures and swaps. Protocols like EigenLayer for restaking or UMA for oracles can enable hedging instruments. dApps buy bulk, predictable gas capacity, insulating users from spot market chaos.

• Key Benefit: Predictable operational costs for dApps.
• Key Vision: Gas risk moves from users to capital markets.