Gelato

Gelato is a full-stack Web3 infrastructure platform that gives developers a single integrated layer for gasless transactions, smart contract automation, smart wallets, and custom L2 rollup deployment. Founded in 2019 by German developers Hilmar Orth and Luis Schliesske, the platform has grown from a smart contract automation network into what the team describes as "Web3's cloud platform," processing more than 1 billion transactions across over 100 chains.

Core Mechanism

Gelato operates through a decentralized network of execution nodes — relayers — that listen for configured conditions, perform required computation off-chain, and submit signed transactions to on-chain contracts on behalf of end users. This model removes the requirement for users to hold native gas tokens, enabling gasless onboarding flows and reducing friction across consumer and enterprise applications alike.

The platform's execution layer supports Ethereum-native account abstraction standards: ERC-4337, which enables smart accounts with user operation bundling, and EIP-7702, which allows delegating EOA control to smart contract code. Rather than building proprietary standards, Gelato plugs into these ecosystem-wide specifications and adds orchestration, gas-tank management, and monitoring infrastructure on top.

Products

Gasless SDK, Paymaster, and Bundler

Gelato's account abstraction infrastructure allows developers to sponsor gas fees on behalf of users, or let users pay in ERC-20 tokens rather than native gas. The Paymaster manages gas tanks, and the Bundler packages user operations into on-chain transactions according to the ERC-4337 specification. This product supports more than 100 EVM-compatible chains and is compatible with both ERC-4337 and EIP-7702 execution paths.

Turbo Relayer

Turbo is Gelato's latest-generation relayer, designed for speed-critical applications. The conventional relay flow — submit a transaction, receive a hash, poll for a receipt — typically takes one to five seconds per round trip. Turbo eliminates the polling step, returning confirmed receipts in as little as 300 milliseconds on supported chains. Gelato reports that Turbo reduces gas overhead by 30–90% compared to previous relay implementations, with EIP-7702 execution paths seeing the largest savings. Turbo supports EVM chains, TRON, and Solana.

Web3 Functions

Web3 Functions is Gelato's smart contract automation framework. Developers configure tasks by selecting a trigger type — time-based schedules, on-chain event listeners, or per-block execution — and an execution method: TypeScript functions for off-chain computation and API data ingestion, Solidity functions for fully on-chain conditional logic, or straightforward Automated Transactions for recurring calls. The framework addresses use cases that require access to off-chain data, complex conditional checks, or regular protocol maintenance calls such as rebalancing, liquidation triggers, and price feed updates that a contract cannot execute autonomously.

Rollup-as-a-Service (RaaS)

Gelato's RaaS offering lets teams deploy a custom Ethereum L2 in minutes. Supported tech stacks include OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, Polygon CDK, and Succinct's ZK proving infrastructure. Settlement layers span Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum; data availability options include Celestia, EigenDA, Avail, and NEAR DA. Gelato's "Snap Deploy" plan starts at $99 per month and covers managed sequencer operations, 24/7 monitoring, and 99.99% uptime commitments.

The platform's Turbo Sequencer is positioned for throughput-intensive applications, with Gelato documenting up to 1 gigagas per second of throughput and 5-millisecond block times. Reya, a derivatives platform built on Gelato's RaaS, reported sub-100ms block times and more than 400 Mgas/s throughput in production. Kraken used Gelato infrastructure to launch Ink, its high-performance rollup.

Private RPCs

Gelato also offers managed RPC endpoints with elastic scaling, automatic failover, and global node distribution for latency-sensitive applications.

GEL Token

Gelato has a native token, GEL, launched on September 13, 2021, with a maximum supply of 420,690,000 GEL. The token participates in the protocol's economic model and governance, while the platform accepts a range of payment methods for gas sponsorship and service subscriptions.

Team and Background

Hilmar Orth and Luis Schliesske co-founded Gelato in 2019 after several years attending Ethereum hackathons and building smart contract tooling for early DeFi protocols, including contributions to decentralized exchanges and lending platforms. Orth studied finance at Cass Business School (University of London) and Schliesske studied political economy at King's College London; both wrote graduate theses on proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms. They previously worked at Superside, a Y Combinator-backed startup, and Watchmaster. Gelato operates with a distributed team in Zug, Berlin, Paris, New York, Cambridge, Warsaw, and Shanghai. The company raised an $11 million Series A to develop its automation network before expanding into its current full-stack positioning.

Platform Scale and Integrations

Gelato reports more than 1 billion transactions processed, $600 million in total value secured, and 4.5 million daily transactions across its relayer infrastructure. More than 2.5 million EOAs use infrastructure deployed on Gelato rollups. Integration partners include Gemini — whose Gemini Wallet uses Gelato to make every transaction gasless across 100+ EVM chains — and Infinex, which delivers gasless and signless UX across 30+ chains through Gelato's relay. Additional wallet and account abstraction integrations span Safe, Privy, Dynamic, ZeroDev, and Web3Auth.

Fit on Solana

Gelato's primary focus is EVM and Ethereum L2 infrastructure — nearly all of its rollup, sequencer, and RaaS products target EVM-compatible chains. However, the Turbo Relayer explicitly includes Solana as a supported target alongside EVM networks and TRON, extending Gelato's gasless transaction relaying and fee-sponsorship capabilities to the Solana ecosystem. For Solana application developers building consumer-facing flows where requiring users to hold SOL for fees creates onboarding friction, Gelato's managed relayer offers a path to sponsored transactions without operating proprietary relay infrastructure.