MultiCall: A Transaction-batching Interpreter for Ethereum

Abstract

Smart contracts are self-executing programs running in the blockchain allowing for decentralised storage and execution without a middleman. On-chain execution is expensive, with miners charging fees for distributed execution according to a cost model defined in the protocol. In particular, transactions have a high fixed cost. In this paper we present MultiCall, an interpreter that reduces the cost of smart contract execution by emulating sequences of transactions from multiple users in one transaction. We have implemented and integrated MultiCall into Ethereum. Our evaluation shows that using MultiCall provides a saving between 56.8% and 98.9% of the fixed per-transaction cost compared to the standard approach of sending transactions individually.