Why moving through liquidity boundaries can affect swap gas

A larger concentrated-liquidity swap can cross more initialized boundaries and require additional state-processing work. This can affect gas consumption even when the transaction still uses one pool. The relationship is not a universal fixed dollar charge per price tick.

Distinguish price distance from initialized boundaries

A wide price movement may cross few boundaries where liquidity changes, while a narrower movement can pass through several initialized positions. Merely counting the percentage price move therefore does not fully describe the work performed.

Uniswap's concentrated-liquidity documentation notes additional transaction cost when an active boundary is crossed. The actual transaction also performs other operations, so boundary count is only one explanatory variable.

A controlled comparison

Suppose two hypothetical same-pool quotes have similar separate conditions, but the larger one crosses three additional initialized boundaries and estimates more gas. The observation is consistent with extra boundary work. It does not isolate an exact per-boundary cost unless other execution differences are controlled.

A router may also add another pool or change its path at the larger size. In that case, attributing the whole gas increase to tick crossings would be unsupported.

Compare units before dollars

Preserve the consumed or estimated gas units separately from the gas price. A higher native-token or dollar bill can come from more expensive network pricing even without more boundary work.

For route selection, compare the additional output with the additional total cost. Better liquidity can justify more computation, while a tiny output improvement may not.

Use a current transaction estimate for the intended route and reconcile actual consumption afterward. Avoid multiplying a remembered cost by the number of visible chart bars: chart aggregation, initialized-boundary placement and implementation details can make that shortcut misleading. The explanatory question is what additional work this transaction performs, not how many abstract price ticks exist between its endpoints.