Fusaka upgrade will solidify its position as a settlement layer and drive the evolution of Layer-2 competition dimensions towards user experience and ecological depth.
Written by: Ye Huiwen
Source: Wall Street Watch
Ethereum is currently executing a critical network upgrade called "Fusaka," marking another important milestone in its ongoing expansion roadmap. This upgrade aims to significantly enhance data capacity and optimize protocol efficiency, further reducing transaction costs on Layer-2 networks and consolidating Ethereum's core position as a global efficient settlement layer.
According to the plan, the Fusaka upgrade will be activated on December 3, 2025, at block height 13,164,544. This follows the Dencun and Pectra upgrades, representing a new step in Ethereum's expansion journey. Kenny Lee, head of Goldman Sachs' crypto business, pointed out that Fusaka represents the next phase of Ethereum's scalability roadmap, aiming to evolve the network into a settlement layer that combines global influence and cost-effectiveness.
The core change in this upgrade is the introduction of "PeerDAS" (Peer Data Availability Sampling) technology. This feature aims to theoretically increase the data capacity of Layer-2 networks by 8 times, achieving higher transaction throughput and significantly reducing transaction fees for Layer-2 users.
Additionally, the Fusaka upgrade includes the introduction of the "Blob Parameter Only" (BPO) fork mechanism, making future network capacity enhancements more flexible; it also optimizes Layer-1 mainnet performance through features like storage expiration and block control, improving wallet functionality and user experience. These changes collectively represent a structural leap for Ethereum in terms of scalability, sustainability, and operability.
From Dencun to Fusaka: Focus on Expansion and Infrastructure Optimization
The Fusaka upgrade is essentially a 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 mainly focus on three areas:
Enhancing Layer-1 efficiency: This includes storage expiration (EIP-7642) and transaction gas limits (EIP-7825), aimed at maintaining the efficiency of node operation as network usage grows.
Expanding Layer-2 data capacity: The core is PeerDAS (EIP-7594), supplemented by Blob parameter updates (EIP-7892) and Blob fee optimizations (EIP-7918).
Improving user experience and developer tools: This covers deterministic proposer foresight (EIP-7917) and precompiled support for the secp256r1 curve (EIP-7951), enhancing wallet functionality and application development.
These three directions align perfectly with the strategic focus established by the Ethereum Foundation in April 2025 (expanding the Ethereum mainnet, expanding Blobs, improving user experience). This article will focus on the enhancement of Layer-2 data capacity and the optimization of the fee mechanism.
Core Mission: A "Layer-2 Centric" Path to Expansion
To understand why Ethereum focuses on scaling through Layer-2, it is necessary to revisit its design philosophy.
In the "Blockchain Trilemma" (the inability to achieve decentralization, security, and scalability simultaneously), Ethereum's early design prioritized the decentralization and security of its base layer (Layer-1). This led to bottlenecks in transaction costs and confirmation times on Layer-1 as the demand for decentralized applications grew.
To address this issue, Ethereum adopted a "Rollup-Centric" roadmap. This strategy shifts the majority of transaction processing tasks to Layer-2 networks, where transactions are executed off-chain, and then the compressed data is published back to Ethereum Layer-1 for final settlement and security assurance.
This modular approach allows Ethereum to achieve scalability without sacrificing its core principles of decentralization. However, it also introduces a new "data availability" problem—how to prove to the entire network that the published compressed data is valid without requiring every node to download all the data.
PeerDAS: The Key to Achieving 8x Data Capacity Growth
The most influential feature of the Fusaka upgrade, PeerDAS, was created to address the aforementioned data availability issue.
Before Fusaka, although the Dencun upgrade introduced "Blobs" as an economical Layer-2 data storage method, each Ethereum full node still needed to download the complete Blob data, limiting the network's bandwidth and throughput ceiling.
PeerDAS fundamentally changes this model. After the upgrade, the network will split Blob data into small pieces and distribute them across different nodes. Each node only needs to download and verify a small portion of the total data (about 1/8) to ensure the availability and integrity of the entire dataset through cryptographic methods. This mechanism significantly reduces the resource requirements for individual nodes, theoretically providing about an 8-fold increase in data capacity for the network. PeerDAS lays the foundation for subsequent Blob expansion and is a key driver for reducing Layer-2 transaction costs.
BPO Fork: More Flexible Blob Limit Increases
As Layer-2 transaction activity continues to grow, so does the demand for Blob space.
According to Coinmetrics data, the daily number of Blobs is on the rise. However, under the existing mechanism, increasing the number of Blobs per block requires a complex "hard fork," which is difficult to coordinate and infrequent.
To address this bottleneck, Fusaka introduces the "Blob Parameter Only (BPO) fork" mechanism. This is a specialized lightweight fork used solely to update parameters related to Blobs (such as the maximum number of Blobs per block). Due to its limited scope and controllable impact, the development team can deploy such upgrades more frequently and safely, allowing the network to gradually increase data capacity without waiting for major upgrades that include other features. According to the Ethereum Foundation, the BPO fork will be pre-programmed to double the number of Blobs in stages over a few weeks until the maximum is reached.
Stable Fee Market: Introducing a Blob Floor Price Mechanism
After the Dencun upgrade, Layer-2 faces two separate fees when publishing data to Ethereum: execution gas and Blob gas. When Blob demand is low, its fees may drop to near zero, but Layer-2 still needs to pay potentially substantial execution gas. This "price signal failure" can lead to pricing inefficiencies and market instability.
To address this issue, Fusaka introduces a "floor price" mechanism for Blobs through EIP-7918. This floor price is not a fixed value but is dynamically linked to execution gas fees.
When market-driven Blob fees fall below this floor price, the fee adjustment algorithm will prevent them from declining further. This aims to ensure that Blob fees always reflect their economic value, keeping the fee market sensitive to network congestion and providing Layer-2 with a more stable and predictable pricing environment.
Market Impact and Potential Risks
The Fusaka upgrade is expected to have a profound impact on the market. The data capacity increases brought by PeerDAS and the BPO fork are likely to further reduce the operating costs of Layer-2. Meanwhile, the floor price mechanism of EIP-7918 ensures that Blob space is not used unreasonably cheaply, maintaining the economic sustainability of the network. This may intensify competition among Layer-2 networks, shifting the focus of competition from transaction costs to user experience, ecological collaboration, and liquidity depth.
However, this upgrade also comes with some risks and considerations:
Execution risk: Any major hard fork carries the risk of client coordination failure or vulnerabilities, which may lead to temporary network instability.
Limited impact on mainnet fees: The direct benefits of the upgrade are mainly reflected in Layer-2, and Ethereum mainnet gas fees may not immediately decrease in the short term.
Hardware requirements: Although PeerDAS optimizes efficiency, higher Blob targets may still increase the bandwidth requirements for validators over time.
Ecological adaptation delay: Layer-2 and dApp developers will need time to fully leverage the advantages of the new architecture.
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