How have recent protocol developments influenced Ethereum’s transaction fees and network efficiency? The Fusaka upgrade has notably reduced Layer-2 transaction costs by approximately 95% for rollup settlement and calldata publication, attributed primarily to enhancements in blob capacity and the PeerDAS mechanism. These changes have increased block gas limits, allowing more operations to be included per block, thereby alleviating congestion and stabilizing gas price volatility for routine user transactions. Reports from project postmortems and infrastructure analyses indicate that gas-equivalent costs for average wallet transfers have returned to levels comparable to those observed in 2017, marking a notable regression in fee inflation due to improved Layer-2 throughput and greater block capacity.
Core protocol modifications have been central to these cost reductions. The increase in block gas capacity elevated the maximum permissible gas per block, permitting a higher volume of transactions and reducing the competition-driven fee spikes common in periods of network stress. PeerDAS, which enables nodes to verify smaller samples of rollup data, has decreased the overhead for settlement proofs, thus lowering Layer-1 costs for rollups. Additionally, the Blob Parameter Only (BPO) mechanism incrementally raises the maximum blobs per block from nine toward twenty-one, further expanding calldata throughput essential for rollup efficiency. EIPs 7883 and 7823 raise blob data costs to better reflect computational complexity, balancing throughput and security. Adjustments to expensive opcodes and Denial-of-Service mitigations have also helped curb exploitative behavior, supporting a more stable and predictable fee environment.
Layer-2 solutions have benefited from these underlying improvements, enabling rollup operators to submit larger, more cost-effective batches of transactions, which reduces the per-transaction gas cost for both Optimistic and ZK rollups. As settlement becomes faster and cheaper, economic incentives encourage sequencers to increase batch sizes, passing savings to end users. While infrastructure nodes and service providers may experience shifts in traffic patterns due to evolving batch processing, these changes suggest potential for new applications involving microtransactions and gamified experiences, previously constrained by high settlement fees. However, the larger absolute gas burned per block, though accompanied by lower user fees, introduces complexities in ETH’s deflationary and issuance models, necessitating ongoing monitoring by on-chain economists.
