Gas Abstraction
Letting a user pay transaction fees in a token other than the network's native gas token, or letting a third party cover the fee on the user's behalf.
Gas abstraction refers to designs that remove the strict requirement for a user to hold and pay transaction fees in a blockchain's specific native gas token, instead letting fees be paid in a different token the user already holds, or covered entirely by a third party such as a paymaster (see Kaavon's "Paymaster" glossary definition). This addresses a common onboarding friction point where a new user holding only one token can't transact at all because they lack the separate native token needed just to pay gas.
Gas abstraction is a broader umbrella concept that includes a gasless transaction (see Kaavon's "Gasless Transaction" glossary definition) — where the user pays no fee at all because someone else covers it — as one specific case, alongside other variants like paying fees in a stablecoin or any other token the user holds, with that payment converted to the native gas token behind the scenes. The common thread across all forms of gas abstraction is separating "what the user experiences paying" from "what the network actually requires as its native gas token."
Examples
- A user holding only a stablecoin can still transact on a network with gas abstraction support, paying fees in that stablecoin rather than needing to separately acquire the network's native gas token.
- A gasless transaction, where a third party covers the fee entirely, is one specific form of the broader gas abstraction concept.