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Cost Reference

All cost data is drawn from the scientific experiment conducted on 2026-02-23 with 100 agents on Base Sepolia. Mainnet (Base L2) costs are comparable.

Key insight

The relayer can serve approximately 8,000 agent registrations per dollar on Base L2. A registry of 1,000 agents costs roughly $5/month to operate.

Per-Operation Costs

Operation Cost to Agent Cost to Relayer (Base L2) Avg Gas Used
Register agent $0.00 ~$0.005 324,584
Attest compliance $0.00 ~$0.001 54,186
Report revenue $0.00 ~$0.002 191,864
Update capabilities $0.00 ~$0.001 ~50,000
Query registry (read) $0.00 $0.00 0 (view call)

Zero cost to agents

Every operation costs $0.00 to the agent. The gasless relayer (ERC-2771) pays all gas fees. Agents need only a private key -- no ETH, no gas tokens, no wallet funding.

Gas Breakdown by Operation

Operation Count Avg Gas Total Gas Total ETH
Registration 100 324,584 32,458,368 0.000195
Attestation 93 54,186 5,039,298 0.000030
Revenue Report 73 191,864 14,006,072 0.000084
Total 281 — 51,503,738 0.000309

Scientific Experiment Totals

Data from the scientific experiment run on 2026-02-23.

Metric Value
Total agents registered 100
Registration success rate 100.0%
Lineage children registered 15
Compliance attestations 93
Revenue reports filed 73
Overall compliance rate 80.9%
Total transactions 281
Total gas cost 0.000309 ETH
Average registration latency 4,807ms
Median registration latency 4,782ms
P95 registration latency 5,026ms
Experiment duration 1,729.5s (~29 minutes)

Registration Latency

Percentile Latency
Average 4,807ms
Median (P50) 4,782ms
P95 5,026ms

Latency components

Registration latency includes: EIP-712 signature generation (~10ms) + relayer HTTP round-trip (~50ms) + Base Sepolia block confirmation (~4,700ms). The block time dominates. On Base Mainnet, block time is ~2 seconds.

Relayer Operating Costs

Projections for operating the gasless relayer at various scales. Includes both gas costs and basic infrastructure (VPS for relayer + API server).

Scale Agents Txs/month Gas Cost/month Infra/month Total/month
Pilot 10 ~40 $0.12 $5 ~$5
Early 100 ~400 $1.20 $10 ~$11
Growth 1,000 ~4,000 $12 $20 ~$32
Scale 10,000 ~40,000 $120 $50 ~$170

Assumptions

  • Each agent performs ~4 transactions per month (1 registration + 4 weekly attestations, amortized)
  • Registration is a one-time cost; attestation is recurring (weekly)
  • Gas prices based on Base L2 observed rates during the experiment
  • Infrastructure costs assume a basic VPS (relayer + API) plus RPC provider

Cost optimization at scale

At 10,000+ agents, consider:

  • Batch transactions: Group multiple attestations into one transaction
  • RPC provider tier: Move from free-tier to a dedicated RPC node
  • Attestation cadence: Adjust the grace period for lower-frequency agents

Cost Projections (ETH)

On-chain gas costs only (no infrastructure):

Scale Registration (one-time) Monthly Attestation (4x) Monthly Total
100 agents 0.000309 ETH 0.0001 ETH 0.0004 ETH
1,000 agents 0.0030 ETH 0.0010 ETH 0.0040 ETH
10,000 agents 0.0300 ETH 0.0100 ETH 0.0399 ETH

ETH price sensitivity

At ETH = $2,500: 0.0399 ETH = ~$100/month for 10,000 agents. At ETH = $5,000: ~$200/month. Base L2 gas costs are largely independent of ETH price due to the L2 fee structure.

Comparison: Cost Per Agent

Registry Model Cost per Agent (Registration) Cost per Agent (Monthly) Who Pays
Agent Registry (Base L2) $0.005 $0.001 Relayer
Ethereum Mainnet (hypothetical) ~$5.00 ~$1.00 Relayer
Traditional database registry $0.00 $0.00 Operator
Handelsregister (Germany) ~$150 $0.00 Company

Why blockchain if databases are free?

A traditional database is cheaper to operate but lacks:

  • Tamper-proof audit trail -- no single party can alter records
  • Jurisdiction independence -- accessible from any country
  • Public verifiability -- anyone can verify without API access
  • Smart contract composability -- other contracts can check registration on-chain

Revenue Reported During Experiment

Currency Reports Total Amount
USDC 39 $25,058
EUR 24 $6,989
ETH 10 $4,500
Category Reports Total Amount
data_sales 22 $13,239
service_fees 13 $10,177
compute_services 16 $8,591
consulting 22 $4,540

First Gasless Registration Proof

The first-ever gasless agent registration on the Agent Registry:

Field Value
Transaction 0x346aa9b3...
Agent ID 1
Gas Used 323,790
Gas Cost 0.00000194274 ETH (~$0.005)
Cost to Agent $0.00

This proves:

  1. Gasless works. The agent wallet had zero ETH. It signed an EIP-712 message (free). The relayer paid 0.000002 ETH.
  2. Publicly verifiable. Anyone can query isRegisteredAndCompliant(0x4b19...) on Base Sepolia.
  3. Cost is negligible. At $0.005 per registration, the relayer can register ~8,000 agents per dollar.

Next Steps