TechFlow news, December 17 — ETHGas, an Ethereum block space futures market, announced a $12 million token financing round led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Stake Capital, BlueYard Capital, Lafayette Macro Advisors, SIG DT, and Amber Group. Earlier in mid-2024, the project also completed a pre-seed funding round of approximately $5 million, which was previously undisclosed.
The current funding round began in July and concluded last month, conducted entirely as a token sale under a SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) structure, consistent with the pre-seed round. In addition to the fundraising, ETHGas announced that Ethereum validators, block builders, and relays have committed around $800 million in support for its market and product development. Lepsoe emphasized that these commitments are not cash investments but liquidity in the form of Ethereum block space—participants supply block space to the ETHGas market in exchange for higher and more predictable returns.
ETHGas has built a futures market for Ethereum block space, enabling block space to be traded in advance rather than solely through real-time bidding at block production. Block space refers to the capacity within an Ethereum block, determining whether transactions are included, their order, and associated costs. ETHGas operates upstream of Ethereum’s existing block production process (i.e., proposer-builder separation), integrating with the current system rather than replacing it.
