Developers are exploring a proposal to improve Ethereum EIP-2751, which can contain the growth of blockchain fees by eliminating “tokenized” gas.
GasToken are loopholes in Ethereum smart contracts that help send transactions cheaply by “tokenizing” gas. This feature allows an Ethereum user to purchase gas tokens for the future at a low price, store them, and then spend them when the commission grows again.
While the matter is still under debate, some developers fear that tokenized gas could one day act as a “floor price” for transaction fees and keep them consistently high.
As Ethereum transaction fees continue to hit highs, developer Alexei Akhunov’s June proposal to improve Ethereum to get rid of EIP 2751 gas tokens has again caught the attention of developers.
According to Akhunov’s calculations, from 1.5% to 2% of transactions on the Ethereum network this summer used prepaid GasTokens. Moreover, many algorithmic traders have similar settings that Akhunov’s analysis does not reflect, as noted by developer Ali Atiia.
“Transaction pools are like a one-way order book in which you place your bets on gas prices. These orders help ensure that you buy gas at the lowest price, as in a traditional two-way order book for exchanges, ”Akhunov said during an Ethereum developer conference call last Friday, adding that he was still analyzing GasToken usage.
Some data on blockchains is more valuable than others, and storing data on the chain is a cost that is borne by the node owners. Ethereum tries to solve this problem by offering ETH to remove old contracts or information from them. Some argue that this is now being done to lower transaction fees.
Created by the cryptocurrency exchange commodity research group Project Chicago in 2017, tokenized gas is essentially a small script that the user runs when they send a transaction. This script deletes the previous data stored in the smart contract with GasToken when the fees were lower.
The network rewards the user for deleting old data. If the price of sending a transaction on the Ethereum network is high enough, the tokenized gas can subsidize up to 50% of the commission.
“GasToken can be used to reduce the cost of gas for any transaction in DeFi or other applications,” said GasToken co-author Florian Tramèr.
However, Akhunov and other developers warn that the widespread use of GasToken could result in market stabilization of high fees. Developer Philippe Castonguay, on the other hand, says the tool simply “flattens” the commission market. Indeed, there are secondary markets for gas tokens, such as the 1.Inch aggregator’s CHI token, launched in May.
Of course, GasToken is just one problem in the commission market. DeFi applications such as Uniswap or Chainlink remain among the top gas consumers, according to Ethgasstation. In addition, the popularity of stablecoins such as USDT or USDC continues to grow.
Recall that recently Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed tripling the cost of smart contracts that update the state of the network to solve the problem of exponential growth in fees.
