The runaway success of Base, the Coinbase-owned Ethereum overlay blockchain designed for faster, cheaper transactions, has prompted the creation of a market linked to the fluctuating value of total gas needed to power the network, allowing speculators to bet on recurring utility increases. in layer 2 systems.
Taking cues from the way traders think and behave in traditional energy markets, Alchemya startup backed by Coinbase Ventures as well as companies like Dragonfly and Castle Island Ventures, allows users to long or short the value of transactions included in blocks, or “blockspace” – a representation of storage and computational capacity of a blockchain.
“Paying for blockspace is like paying for other energy sources, like cars paying for gasoline or airplanes paying for jet fuel,” Alkimiya founder Leo Zhang said in a interview “Traditional energy markets have developed that allow airlines to hedge against their jet fuel price, for example, and we think there should be a better price discovery mechanism for how it’s priced. and people use this primary source of energy, which is blockspace.”
Launched in August 2023, Base outperformed its competitors in layer 2, generating more than $14 million last month. Increased activity at the Base means that the aggregate gas paid into the network can fluctuate significantly, from as low as 10 ETH to as high as 200 ETH in one day.
Unlike many other blockchains, Base has no token and have no plans to issue one. Alkimiya’s smart contracts allow users to bet on how the value of the Base blockspace may change thanks to the introduction of AI agents, for example, or on-chain events such as the arrival of a certain memecoin, NFT or airdrop.
Under the hood, Alkimiya uses a very common decentralized finance (DeFi) architecture where an oracle monitors the gas consumed by users in the Base, and a system of smart contracts that facilitates accounting and logic, explained said Zhang.
“A user can buy this contract that tracks the total amount of gas paid in the Base roll up itself,” Zhang said. “And the reason it can be done is because it’s completely transparent. There’s no centralized exchange where everything is in a black box.”
