Ethereum undergoes the "Fusaka upgrade," continuing its "scaling and efficiency improvement" to strengthen on-chain settlement capabilities
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Ethereum undergoes the "Fusaka upgrade," continuing its "scaling and efficiency improvement" to strengthen on-chain settlement capabilities
The Fusaka upgrade will solidify its position as a settlement layer and drive Layer-2 competition toward user experience and ecosystem depth.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Ye Huiwen
Source: Wall Street Insights
Ethereum is today executing a critical network upgrade named "Fusaka," another major milestone in its ongoing scalability roadmap. This upgrade aims to significantly increase data capacity and optimize protocol efficiency, further reducing transaction costs for Layer-2 networks and reinforcing Ethereum's role as a global high-efficiency settlement layer.
As scheduled, the Fusaka upgrade will activate on December 3, 2025, at block height 13,164,544. This marks a new step forward in Ethereum’s scaling journey following the Dencun and Pectra upgrades. Kenny Lee, head of Goldman Sachs’ crypto business, noted that Fusaka represents the next phase of Ethereum’s scalability roadmap, aiming to evolve the network into a globally impactful and cost-efficient settlement layer.
The most significant change in this upgrade is the introduction of "PeerDAS" (Peer Data Availability Sampling). This feature is designed to theoretically increase Layer-2 data capacity by up to 8 times, enabling higher transaction throughput and potentially significantly lowering transaction fees for Layer-2 users.
In addition, the Fusaka upgrade includes the introduction of a "Blob-Only Parameter" (BPO) fork mechanism, allowing future increases in network capacity to be more flexible. It also optimizes Layer-1 mainnet performance through features such as storage expiry and block control, while improving wallet functionality and user experience. Together, these changes represent a structural leap for Ethereum in terms of scalability, sustainability, and operability.
From Dencun to Fusaka: Focusing on Scaling and Infrastructure Optimization
The Fusaka upgrade is actually the synchronized activation of the consensus-layer "Fulu" upgrade and the execution-layer "Osaka" upgrade. According to the final plan confirmed by the Ethereum Foundation, the Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) included in the upgrade primarily focus on three key areas:
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Improving Layer-1 Efficiency: Includes storage expiry (EIP-7642) and transaction gas limit adjustments (EIP-7825), aimed at maintaining efficient node operations as network usage grows.
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Expanding Layer-2 Data Capacity: Centered on PeerDAS (EIP-7594), supported by Blob parameter updates (EIP-7892) and Blob fee optimizations (EIP-7918).
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Enhancing User Experience and Developer Tools: Includes deterministic proposer lookahead (EIP-7917) and precompiles for secp256r1 curve support (EIP-7951), enhancing wallet functions and application development.
These three directions align perfectly with the strategic priorities established by the Ethereum Foundation in April 2025—scaling the Ethereum mainnet, expanding Blobs, and improving user experience. This article will focus specifically on enhancements to Layer-2 data capacity and fee mechanism optimization.
Core Mission: A Rollup-Centric Scaling Path
To understand why Ethereum focuses on scaling via Layer-2, one must revisit its design philosophy.
In the context of the "blockchain trilemma"—the idea that decentralization, security, and scalability cannot all be maximized simultaneously—Ethereum initially prioritized decentralization and security at its base layer (Layer-1). As demand from decentralized applications grew, this led to bottlenecks on Layer-1, including high transaction fees and slow confirmation times.
To address this, Ethereum adopted a "Rollup-centric" roadmap. This strategy shifts the majority of transaction processing to Layer-2 networks, where transactions are executed off-chain and then compressed data is posted back to Ethereum Layer-1 for final settlement and security assurance.
This modular approach enables Ethereum to achieve scalability without compromising its core principle of decentralization. However, it also introduces a new challenge: "data availability"—how to cryptographically prove that published compressed data is valid without requiring every node to download all of it.
PeerDAS: The Key to 8x Data Capacity Growth
The most impactful feature in the Fusaka upgrade, PeerDAS, was created specifically to solve this data availability problem.
Prior to Fusaka, although the Dencun upgrade introduced "Blobs" as an economically efficient way to store Layer-2 data, each Ethereum full node still had to download the complete Blob data, limiting the network’s bandwidth and throughput ceiling.
PeerDAS fundamentally changes this model. After the upgrade, Blob data will be split into smaller pieces and distributed across different nodes. Each node only needs to download and verify a small portion (approximately 1/8) of the total data, yet can cryptographically ensure the availability and integrity of the entire dataset. This mechanism greatly reduces resource requirements per node, enabling a theoretical ~8x increase in network data capacity. PeerDAS lays the foundation for future Blob scaling and is a key driver behind decreasing Layer-2 transaction costs.
BPO Fork: More Flexible Increases to Blob Limits
As Layer-2 transaction activity continues to grow (Figure 2), so does its demand for Blob space.
Data from Coinmetrics shows a rising trend in daily Blob counts. However, under the current mechanism, increasing the number of Blobs per block requires a complex "hard fork," which is difficult to coordinate and infrequent.
To overcome this bottleneck, Fusaka introduces the "Blob-Only Parameter (BPO)" fork mechanism—a specialized lightweight fork used solely to update Blob-related parameters, such as the maximum number of Blobs per block. Due to its narrow scope and limited impact, development teams can deploy such upgrades more frequently and safely, enabling the network to incrementally increase data capacity without waiting for major upgrades that bundle multiple features. According to the Ethereum Foundation, BPO forks will be pre-programmed to gradually double Blob counts over several weeks until reaching the maximum limit.
Stable Fee Market: Introducing a Blob Floor Price Mechanism
After the Dencun upgrade, Layer-2 networks posting data to Ethereum face two separate fees: execution gas and Blob gas. When Blob demand is low, its fee may drop close to zero, but Layer-2 still has to pay potentially significant execution gas. This "price signal failure" leads to inefficient pricing and market instability.
To address this, Fusaka introduces a "floor price" mechanism for Blobs via EIP-7918. This floor price is not fixed but dynamically linked to execution gas fees.
When market-driven Blob fees fall below this floor, the fee adjustment algorithm prevents further decline. This aims to ensure Blob fees always reflect their economic value, keep the fee market responsive to network congestion, and provide Layer-2 with a more stable and predictable pricing environment.
Market Impact and Potential Risks
The Fusaka upgrade is expected to have profound market implications. The increased data capacity brought by PeerDAS and BPO forks could further reduce Layer-2 operating costs. Meanwhile, the floor price mechanism in EIP-7918 ensures Blob space isn't used irrationally cheaply, preserving the network's economic sustainability. This may intensify competition among Layer-2 networks, shifting the competitive focus from transaction cost to user experience, ecosystem collaboration, and liquidity depth.
However, the upgrade also carries certain risks and considerations:
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Execution Risk: Any major hard fork carries the risk of client coordination failures or undiscovered bugs, potentially causing temporary network instability.
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Limited Impact on Mainnet Fees: The direct benefits are primarily felt on Layer-2; Ethereum mainnet gas fees may not see immediate reductions in the short term.
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Hardware Requirements: While PeerDAS improves efficiency, higher Blob targets may over time increase bandwidth demands for validators.
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Ecosystem Adaptation Delay: Layer-2 and dApp developers will need time to fully leverage the advantages of the new architecture.
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