Definition
A gas auction is a competitive fee-bidding mechanism in which pending transactions implicitly or explicitly compete on gas price or total gas reward to obtain preferential inclusion, ordering, or execution priority in a block. It describes the market process by which transaction senders, searchers, or other participants offer gas-denominated payments that influence how validators select and sequence transactions on-chain under constrained blockspace.
In Simple Terms
Gas auction is the contest where different transactions offer higher or lower gas payments to get picked and ordered first in a block. Whoever is willing to pay more in gas tends to gain priority when validators decide which transactions to include on-chain, given limited space per block.
Context and Usage
The term gas auction is commonly used in discussions of transaction fee markets, MEV extraction, and mempool dynamics. It characterizes how gas fees evolve when many participants simultaneously compete for limited blockspace and ordering influence. In validator-centric systems, gas auctions frame the economic interaction between transaction originators, specialized searchers, and validators, especially when analyzing on-chain congestion, priority rules, and revenue distribution.