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Will Ethereum Adopt an On-Chain Gas Futures Market? Buterin Weighs In
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has introduced a new idea for an on-chain futures market for gas, a mechanism he believes could bring greater certainty and predictability to transaction fees as network usage increases.
Buterin Calls for a “Trustless Gas Futures Market”
In a post shared on X, Buterin said the Ethereum ecosystem is in need of a “good trustless onchain gas futures market.” He noted that many community members continue to ask whether current roadmap strategies can guarantee persistently low fees.
To address this uncertainty, Buterin suggested enabling users to lock in gas prices for future periods, effectively creating a marketplace for Ethereum Base fees — one of the core components that determine overall gas costs.
According to Buterin, “An onchain gas futures market would help solve this: People would get a clear signal of people’s expectations of future gas fees, and would even be able to hedge against future gas prices, effectively prepaying for any specific quantity of gas in a specific time interval.”
How an On-Chain Gas Futures Market Could Work
Traditional futures markets let participants buy or sell assets such as oil at predetermined prices for future dates. The model helps traders speculate on price changes and allows producers to hedge against volatility.
Applied to Ethereum, a futures market would operate similarly by offering set gas prices for future time windows. Users, developers, applications and institutions could secure gas at predictable rates while preparing for potential spikes, and the resulting price signals could contribute to long-term planning within the ecosystem.
A reliable on-chain prediction mechanism would provide especially meaningful support for high-volume participants who depend on stable operational costs.
Declining Ethereum Gas Fees in 2025
Buterin’s proposal comes at a time when Ethereum gas fees have fallen significantly throughout 2025.
Data from Etherscan shows that the average base gas fee for simple transactions is around 0.474 gwei, equal to roughly $0.01. More complex activities — including token swaps, NFT transactions and cross-chain bridging — currently average about $0.16, $0.27 and $0.05, respectively.
Despite the overall downward trend, volatility has remained. Ycharts data indicates that the average transaction fee began the year near $1, dropped to around $0.30, and experienced swings between $2.60 and $0.18 over the same period.
