What are Relayers?
Relayers are services or tools that facilitate off-chain communication and transaction submission on behalf of users in decentralized networks. They typically receive signed transaction data from users and then broadcast these transactions to the blockchain, often handling gas payments or batching multiple transactions to optimize costs and efficiency. Tools in this category include meta-transaction relayers, gasless transaction providers, and transaction batching services.
The primary use cases for relayers involve improving user experience by abstracting gas fees, enabling gasless interactions, and supporting complex transaction workflows that require off-chain coordination. Target users are dapp developers and product teams aiming to reduce friction in user onboarding and transaction execution. Key characteristics of relayers include trust assumptions, fee models, and support for specific blockchain protocols or standards like EIP-2771 (meta-transactions).
Relayers are closely related to categories like infrastructure and interoperability but focus specifically on transaction submission and off-chain relay mechanisms. Developers should consider relayer tools when they want to enable gasless transactions, improve UX by handling transaction submission complexity, or implement advanced transaction patterns that require off-chain coordination.