Alkimiya Unveils First DeFi Market for Trading Base Rollup Revenue

Alkimiya, a pioneering blockspace markets protocol, today launched the first market that allows users to directly trade revenue generated by the Base rollup.

Alkimiya, a pioneering blockspace markets protocol, today announced the launch of the first market that allows users to directly trade revenue generated by the Base rollup. This new primitive serves as a novel way to participate in L2 ecosystems, especially those without governance tokens.

The market will trade a percentage of the total gas paid to the Base sequencer, which can vary drastically — from as low as 10 ETH to as high as 200 ETH in a single day. This metric serves as a direct measure of blockspace utilization, with higher gas spent indicating increased on-chain activity.

The Base L2 gas markets also present a unique opportunity for traders to capitalize on various on-chain activities that contribute to increased gas fees. For instance, during the launch of Magic Eden's L2 airdrop in November, gas prices on Base soared to over 1.2 gwei as users rushed to claim their L2 NFTs.

“Trading total gas spent is a unique way to bet on the fundamental growth of an ecosystem without interacting with the platform's governance tokens, and in this case, Base doesn't have a token,” said Leo Zhang, founder of Alkimiya.

The economic relationship between the ETH mainnet and its rollups has long been a subject of discussion. Broadly, the dispute arises from differing opinions on who ultimately benefits when transaction volume moves from the mainnet to L2 networks.

Top L2s are consistently raking in millions a month in revenue while paying <15% of to L1 validators since EIP-4844. Notably, L2s like Arbitrum and Optimism have seen their governance tokens appreciate by over 10x since their launches.

Launched in August 2023, Base quickly became one of the fastest-growing communities. It attracted a vibrant user base and positioned itself as a leader by generating the highest revenue among its peers — over $14 million in the last month.

Being a rollup without a governance token, Base presents an interesting case for Alkimiya to introduce a new primitive in the L2 ecosystem. Now, active community members can offset transaction costs by buying a percentage of the total gas spent on Base.

Meanwhile, investors bullish on the Base ecosystem can participate in its upside. It is unlikely that Base will issue a governance token according to Jesse Pollack, creator of Base and head of protocols at Coinbase.

“These markets are also designed to capture the value of most on-chain activities that contribute to increased gas fees. For example, if an NFT project launches on Base and drives up gas prices, those participating in these markets will benefit from the increased activity,” reads the announcement.

Alkimiya is known for its innovative approach to markets, and its traders are renowned for their ability to identify and capitalize on trends in on-chain activity. In November, Blockworks reported that traders on Alkimiya's BTC Feerate Market predicted and profited from on-chain events.

For instance, a spike in reverted transactions occurred as bots attempted to snipe new memecoin launches. Over 53% of the transactions were reverted, causing gas price on the network to elevate.

However, users lacked protection against these volatile fee swings, simply paying the higher costs as they occurred. Now, Alkimiya enables users to hedge against these fluctuations.

Alkimiya was founded by a team of researchers and traders with a deep understanding of theسرائ Blockspace dynamics. Developed by Anicca Research, a leading institution in the field, Alkimiya protocol is the result of comprehensive studies and influential publications by leading researchers.

The Alkimiya Base L2 Gas Market is currently live on Base. In August, it introduced its BTC Feerate Market, enabling users to trade the average Bitcoin network transaction feerate.

Traders leveraged this market to benefit from on-chain events, such as Babylon Cap-1 launch, Magic Eden airdrop, and popular Rune mints.