ETHGas pushes ethereum blockspace innovation with $12 million raise and first futures market

Backed by fresh capital and major validator support, ETHGas is redesigning how ethereum blockspace is priced and traded across the network.

ETHGas secures $12 million and $800 million in commitments

ETHGas has raised $12 million and lined up $800 million in validator commitments to launch Ethereum’s first blockspace futures market. The team wants to turn blockspace from a frantic fee auction into a predictable, tradable commodity for users, apps, and institutions.

The $12 million seed round was led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Stake Capital, BlueYard Capital, Lafayette Macro Advisors, SIG DT, and Amber Group. According to founder Kevin Lepsoe, the round began in July and closed last month, adding to earlier backing.

Moreover, the funding was structured entirely as a token round using a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens. ETHGas had already raised an unannounced pre-seed of around $5 million in mid-2024 with the same structure. Lepsoe declined to reveal the project’s valuation and confirmed that no board or advisory seats were offered.

What makes this raise distinctive is not only the capital, but the scale of onchain commitments that accompany it. Validators, block builders, and relays have collectively pledged roughly $800 million in liquidity to the ETHGas marketplace, signalling deep supply-side alignment.

Validator liquidity commitments and incentives

The $800 million in support is not cash invested into the company. Instead, it represents blockspace supplied directly into the platform by Ethereum validators, builders, and relays. However, this structure is designed to give network participants new ways to monetize their role.

In exchange for supplying blockspace, participants seek higher and more predictable yields. By selling blockspace ahead of time instead of only at the instant of block production, validators gain more certainty over revenue and a larger share of MEV capture.

According to Lepsoe, this alignment of incentives is central to why validators are willing to participate at scale. Moreover, it may gradually shift the economics of staking, as operators reprice the value of predictable future blockspace versus volatile spot fees.

How the ETHGas blockspace futures market works

At its core, ETHGas allows future blocks on Ethereum to be bought and sold in advance. Blockspace is the capacity within each block that dictates which transactions are included, in what order, and at what price point they clear.

Traditionally, this capacity is auctioned every 12 seconds when a block is produced, forcing users to bid in real time. ETHGas shifts the process upstream. The protocol plugs into Ethereum’s existing proposer-builder separation model instead of replacing it, preserving current infrastructure while adding a new layer of pricing.

Validators can sell blockspace futures up to 64 blocks ahead of time, equivalent to roughly 12.8 minutes. That said, Lepsoe compares the model to energy or commodities markets, where producers sell capacity in advance and buyers lock in delivery to manage risk and volatility.

The same logic applies here: less uncertainty, more transparency, and fewer openings for manipulation in the fee market. Over time, a deep blockspace futures market could smooth gas price spikes that currently emerge without warning.

Types of blockspace commitments on ETHGas

ETHGas supports multiple forms of blockspace commitments, offering flexibility for both validators and buyers. Validators can sell entire blocks in advance, creating fully reserved capacity for sophisticated users who need priority execution.

Alternatively, they can sell inclusion guarantees that ensure a specific transaction lands in a chosen block. There are also execution guarantees that lock in both inclusion and price conditions, which can be crucial for complex trading or institutional workflows.

Moreover, the platform supports multi-block commitments, such as consecutive blocks or fixed windows of Ethereum time. According to Lepsoe, these structures help validators extract significantly more MEV than traditional spot auctions, which directly boosts staking yields.

That economic upside is a primary driver behind validator participation. By channeling future blockspace into structured contracts, the marketplace aims to turn a volatile revenue stream into something closer to a fixed-income profile for operators.

Impact on users, applications, and institutions

From the buyer side, ETHGas introduces tools Ethereum has never had at scale. Traders, decentralized applications, and institutions can hedge gas costs, prepay for execution, and avoid sudden fee spikes that previously forced last-second bidding wars.

Instead of reacting to congestion, market participants can plan around it. Moreover, this opens the door for more sophisticated strategies that rely on known execution timing and cost, such as arbitrage, liquidations, or large asset transfers.

Lepsoe says ETHGas has already drawn interest from traditional finance firms, sovereign funds, and real-world asset issuers exploring Ethereum. As trillions of dollars in assets move onchain, understanding and controlling access to ethereum blockspace becomes a strategic priority rather than a minor operational detail.

He also hinted at larger commitments from digital asset treasury companies, with more details expected in January. If that demand crystallizes, futures-style blockspace contracts could become standard tooling for institutional risk management.

Revenue model and long-term positioning

ETHGas currently earns revenue by taking a 5 percent fee on blockspace futures trades conducted on its marketplace. Over time, the team plans to introduce additional fees for applications that require real-time settlement and more complex execution guarantees.

This approach positions ETHGas not just as a trading venue, but as core infrastructure for execution certainty on Ethereum. Moreover, it aligns the company’s upside with network usage, since higher activity and more sophisticated demand translate directly into greater fee volume.

Toward real-time Ethereum and MEV reduction

Beyond futures, ETHGas is also advancing a more radical idea: making Ethereum effectively real time. The protocol introduces a system that breaks a single block into hundreds of sequential slices, each lasting 50 to 100 milliseconds.

This design could make Ethereum 100 to 200 times faster in terms of perceived responsiveness, while significantly reducing exploitable MEV opportunities. However, it also requires careful coordination between validators, builders, and applications.

Lepsoe argues that this real-time sequencing model redirects value away from pure MEV extractors and toward applications, liquidity providers, and end users. Automated market makers, for example, could earn billions more annually through near-instant arbitrage without consistently being front-run.

This vision closely aligns with public remarks from Ethereum researchers. Justin Drake has argued that pre-confirmations and real-time execution are essential to improving user experience, while Vitalik Buterin has previously called for a trustless onchain gas futures market as part of Ethereum’s evolution.

Dual models and real-time sequencing rollout

ETHGas now operates two parallel models. One allows traditional MEV players to continue operating, but at higher costs that ultimately benefit validators. The other aims to eliminate MEV altogether through real-time sequencing.

Moreover, this dual approach gives the ecosystem a migration path rather than a sudden break from existing infrastructure. Market makers and searchers can still function in the familiar framework while the real-time system gains adoption.

The real-time sequencing system has already run successfully on Ethereum mainnet. A broader rollout is targeted for the first quarter of next year, marking a key milestone in the project’s attempt to deliver real time sequencing at scale.

Team, origins, and strategic context

ETHGas has 18 contributors spread across Asia, Europe, and the United States, with roughly half of the team based in Hong Kong. There are currently no immediate plans to expand headcount, signaling a focus on shipping rather than rapid hiring.

The project is a spinout from Infinity Exchange, Lepsoe’s earlier fixed-income protocol that is currently paused. Work on ETHGas began as the team tried to address MEV and liquidation risks that have historically discouraged institutional investors from onchain markets.

What this implies is that ETHGas is not merely another Ethereum tooling startup. Instead, it is challenging how blockspace is priced, allocated, and controlled at a structural level across the network.

If it succeeds, Ethereum could shift from a reactive fee auction toward a predictable execution layer. Moreover, such a transition could redefine how serious capital, from sovereign funds to asset managers, chooses to use the network and manage validator liquidity commitments.

In summary, ETHGas combines ethgas seed funding, large validator commitments, and novel mev reduction strategies to reshape how blockspace is traded and executed, potentially ushering in a more transparent and institution-ready Ethereum.