Ethereum has long struggled with unpredictable transaction fees, and Vitalik Buterin believes it’s time for the network to adopt a tool that could finally bring clarity to long-term gas pricing.
Instead of focusing on lowering fees, Buterin is drawing attention to how uncertain they remain months or even years ahead — and he argues that Ethereum needs a mechanism to let people prepare for those shifts in advance.
- Buterin wants an on-chain futures market so Ethereum users can lock in gas costs ahead of time.
- A futures system would create clearer long-term pricing signals for BASEFEE.
- Early experiments exist, but the ecosystem still lacks a mature market for future gas pricing.
Looking Beyond Today’s Gas Price
Current fees may be relatively calm, but Buterin notes that short-term stability doesn’t translate into long-term predictability. Users, developers, and businesses often have no sense of what gas costs will look like in the future, especially as network cycles tend to change suddenly. This uncertainty creates planning challenges for anyone who depends on Ethereum for high-volume or long-term operations.
To solve this, Buterin suggests creating a dedicated on-chain market where users can secure gas for future use. The idea resembles traditional futures markets: people would be able to purchase claims at a locked-in price, effectively guaranteeing the cost of their future transactions.
A Market Signaling System for Ethereum Fees
Rather than relying on speculation or guesswork, this futures market would produce real-time pricing signals based on traders’ expectations of Ethereum’s BASEFEE. If implemented, it would reveal how the market collectively believes gas costs will evolve and allow users to protect themselves against sudden spikes.
Under such a system, gas becomes something users can pre-buy and store for later use, giving them far more control over costs than the current fee model allows.
Early Attempts and the Road Ahead
Buterin acknowledges that the idea isn’t entirely new. Some projects — including Oiler — have experimented with gas-related derivative instruments. But none have reached the scale, liquidity, or maturity required to make future gas pricing a mainstream feature of the Ethereum ecosystem.
He argues that as Ethereum continues to grow, the absence of a well-developed futures market leaves users exposed to unnecessary uncertainty. A mature version of this system, he says, would offer meaningful protection and help Ethereum evolve into a more predictable economic environment.
A Step Toward Long-Term Stability
As more organizations rely on Ethereum for real, large-scale business operations, the ability to forecast gas costs becomes essential. Buterin’s proposal seeks to fill that gap by turning one of Ethereum’s biggest variables into something users can plan around.
The idea shifts the conversation from simply lowering fees to making them stable, understandable, and manageable far in advance — a change that could meaningfully improve the network’s long-term usability.
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Source: https://coindoo.com/vitalik-buterin-wants-to-let-you-pre-buy-ethereum-gas-before-prices-explode/