Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin promotes a new mechanism to reduce sudden spikes in transaction costs on the network.
His latest proposal outlines a trustless, on-chain prediction market designed to help users secure future gas prices and manage volatility rather than react to it.
Buterin's proposed Ethereum market
On December 6, Buterin argued that Ethereum needs a market-based signal for future demand for block space.
The structure would trade exposure to the network's Base Fee by allowing participants to buy or sell gas commitments tied to a future date.
According to him, the goal is to provide developers and heavy users a way to lock in costs and plan even when the current price of gas remains low.
The proposal comes at an unusual time, as gas prices are near multi-year lows.
Etherscan data shows that Ethereum's average gas price is about 0.468 Gwei, or roughly three cents. This is because much of the network's retail activity has shifted to cheaper Layer 2 networks like Base and Arbitrum.
Still, Buterin argues that the current calm breeds complacency.
He emphasizes that an on-chain futures curve would provide a clear signal of long-term market expectations. It would allow users to prepay for block space and lock in costs regardless of future increases.
“People would get a clear signal of expectations for future gas fees, and would even be able to hedge against future gas prices, effectively prepaying for a specific amount of gas in a certain time frame,” he stated.
The Ethereum community's reaction
Supporters see the proposal as an underrated pillar of Ethereum's long-term design. They argue that a trustless gas futures market would fill a structural gap rather than introduce another DeFi novelty.
In their view, a BASEFEE market would align expectations with transparent pricing and provide the ecosystem with a shared reference point for future network conditions.
Thus, a liquid market for gas exposure could change this dynamic by allowing developers to buy gas insurance to limit operating costs before critical events. Heavy users could also counter future fee spikes by taking the opposite market position.
“If Ethereum becomes the settlement layer for everything, then gas itself becomes a financial asset. So yes, a trustless gas futures market is not just a ‘nice to have.’ It feels like a natural evolution for a chain aiming for global scale,” the analyst stated.
In the meantime, an industry advisor at Titan Builder noted that running this as a classic derivatives market would be difficult because validators could manipulate outcomes by producing empty blocks.
He added that a delivered futures market for block space with a liquid secondary market remains feasible. Such a structure could be sufficient to support public price discovery and hedging.
