With Ethereum’s Cancun-Deneb upgrade successfully activated, EIP-4844 introduced blobs, improved data logistics, and managed to reduce L2 rates. However, its effects should not be overestimated, says Eric Wall.
With Ethereum’s Cancun-Deneb upgrade successfully activated, EIP-4844 introduced blobs, improved data logistics, and managed to reduce L2 rates. However, its effects should not be overestimated, says Eric Wall.
EIP-4844 won’t completely solve performance and rate issues, says Eric Wall
The narrative of “very cheap” transaction fees on Ethereum (ETH) L2 after Dencun activation is a misconception. Despite the breakthrough, the design of sequencers still allows for fee increases in some situations, as cryptocurrency technology veteran Eric Wall explains.
Even given the maximum capacity of blob space, L2 accumulators after Dencun would only scale to 100-1000 transactions per second (TPS).
At the same time, even if a single rollup consumes all the blob space and runs at its maximum theoretical capacity, that doesn’t necessarily mean rates will always be low, Wall says.
To illustrate his point, he recalled some possible “stress tests” for Ethereum-based networks and L1/L2 sequencers, including extreme buying pressure:
Sequencers still have to sequence with limited performance => fees
Rate statistics from the first few days with EIP-4844 activated confirmed such estimates, as significant rate increases were observed on OP Stack-based chains.
Here are the cheapest Ethereum L2 at the moment
After months of preparation, the Ethereum (ETH) Dencun upgrade began on the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet on March 13, paving the way for optimized data usage for EVM L2.
As evidenced by the L2Fees tracker, across all dominant L2s (Optimism, Arbitrum, Starknet and zkSync Era) cross-asset swap and transfer prices fell below $0.01 in equivalent.
At the same time, for some networks, including Loopring, zkSync Lite, and Boba Network, rates remained largely untouched by the changes brought about by Dencun.
