Ethereum's Shocking Upgrade: Will the 8x 'Blob' Capacity Change Everything You Know?

On Wednesday, Ethereum users celebrated the launch of the Fusaka upgrade, marking the second significant enhancement to the platform in 2023. This upgrade focuses on improving the user experience while addressing a longstanding issue: the high cost of transactions on Ethereum’s layer 2 blockchains, which are designed to facilitate quicker and cheaper transactions. The urgency behind this latest upgrade reflects a growing need for Ethereum to regain user confidence after a tumultuous year.

Since the highly publicized Merge in 2022, which transitioned Ethereum from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake network, developers have been working at an accelerated pace to implement improvements. Fusaka was unveiled just seven months after the previous upgrade, Pectra, illustrating the community's commitment to advancing the platform amidst challenges.

One of the key features of the Fusaka upgrade is a substantial increase in data throughput for layer 2 blockchains. Prior to this upgrade, these blockchains could send a maximum of 9 blobs (data packets) per block to Ethereum. With the new upgrade, that capacity has increased eightfold, although the adjustments will be implemented gradually. A mini-upgrade is scheduled for December 9, which will raise the maximum blob capacity to 15, followed by another increase to 21 blobs per block on January 7.

"It’s this new technique that people have been working on for a very long time," stated Alex Stokes from the Ethereum Foundation, during a livestream hosted by EthStaker. "It lets us scale while not compromising on the values that are so important to Ethereum."

The innovation introduced with Fusaka is called peer data availability sampling, or PeerDAS. This allows individual nodes to store a fraction of blob data while still being able to verify the entire dataset. This mechanism supports the scalability of the Ethereum network without sacrificing decentralization, a core principle of the platform.

Despite being a highly decentralized platform, Ethereum has struggled with scalability, often leading to congested networks and soaring transaction fees. Layer 2 blockchains have emerged to address these challenges by processing transactions more affordably while using Ethereum as a settlement layer. The upgrades like Fusaka aim to lay the groundwork for future enhancements, potentially allowing Ethereum to handle even higher transaction volumes.

"We think of blobs as being for L2s. In the long term, we want to dump L1 data into blobs as well," noted Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder, during the livestream.

Other improvements included in the Fusaka upgrade will enable users to sign transactions using biometric authentication, such as facial recognition technology available on smartphones. This feature aims to enhance security and user accessibility further. Moreover, the upgrade strengthens the network against denial-of-service attacks, which aim to overload the network with a surge of spam transactions and render it unusable.

Looking ahead, Ethereum’s next major upgrade, codenamed Glamsterdam, is scheduled for 2026. This forthcoming upgrade is anticipated to address even more critical issues, including lowering the costs associated with using the Ethereum mainnet.

As Ethereum continues to evolve, the community remains aware of the challenges ahead. The advancements made with Fusaka represent not just a response to immediate needs but also a strategic foundation for Ethereum’s ambitions of processing a trillion transactions a day in the future. As Paul Brody from the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance remarked, "We actually already have more network transaction capacity than we really need. But we are laying the foundation on the road to a trillion transactions a day, and we will need every single upgrade by the time we are done."

The Fusaka upgrade exemplifies Ethereum's commitment to scalability, user experience, and security—and sets the stage for a more robust future in the blockchain space.