Impact of Ethereum Fusaka Upgrade: Gas Costs, L1 Throughput, L2 Capacity, Node Threshold

Author: Shen Chao

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Ethereum spot ETFs recorded net inflows again after a weak performance last week, as market sentiment gradually improves. Ethereum's next upgrade is also on the way.

Looking back at history, almost every technological upgrade has become a catalyst for price increases, and the enhanced on-chain performance after upgrades is directly reflected in the valuation expectations of ETH.

And this time, the Fusaka upgrade coming on December 3rd will be broader in scope and have a deeper impact.

It is not just an efficiency optimization, but a significant upgrade to the entire Ethereum mainnet: Gas costs, L1 throughput, L2 capacity, node thresholds… almost every core metric that determines the vitality of the network has made a tremendous leap.

If the past upgrades made Ethereum “cheaper” or “faster”, then the significance of Fusaka lies in making Ethereum more scalable and sustainable.

As the functionality of protocols becomes increasingly complex, the demand for the underlying chain's capacity is also rising. With the emergence of AI Agents and high-frequency interactive DApps, this upgrade will directly impact Ethereum's position in the upcoming wave of Web3 applications.

So, what exactly has changed? If you want to quickly understand, here is a visual flow of all the core changes of the Fusaka upgrade:

Next, we will popularize the core logic of the Fusaka upgrade from both a technical perspective and its actual impact.

This is definitely not a technical report meant only for developers; we will explain it in a way that even tech novices can easily understand, guiding you to quickly grasp the key changes behind this upgrade. If you are not interested in the operating mechanism, you can skip directly to the latter part to see how this upgrade will affect the Ethereum ecosystem and the experience of every user.

Fusuka Core Upgrade: Further Expansion

The core purpose of the following technical improvements is only one: to achieve further scalability while ensuring security and decentralization.

PeerDAS: From Full Storage to Sampling Verification

Blob is a new type of data block on Ethereum that stores a large amount of on-chain data, packaging Layer 2 transactions into a “big box,” similar to how a courier company delivers a large number of packages at once, efficiently uploading to the chain without occupying permanent storage space.

Before the upgrade of Fusaka, each node had to store every package in full, just like a courier company, resulting in warehouses being overloaded, bandwidth being tight, and the costs for nodes rising sharply.

PeerDAS has proposed a more elegant solution: instead of storing the entire warehouse, it now uses global sharding sampling.

Storage: Each blob is divided into 8 parts, and nodes randomly store only 1/8 of it, while the rest is distributed and stored by other nodes.

Verification: Through random sampling verification, the error probability is as low as 10²⁰–10²⁴. Nodes can quickly retrieve missing segments using erasure codes, easily reconstructing complete data.

It sounds simple, yet it is a significant improvement in the field of data availability. This actually means:

Node burden reduced by 8 times;

The pressure on network bandwidth has dropped sharply;

Storage shifts from centralized to distributed, enhancing security further.

Blob Pricing Mechanism

In the Dencun upgrade, Ethereum introduced blobs, allowing Rollups to upload data at a lower cost. Its fees are dynamically adjusted by the system based on demand. However, some limitations have arisen in reality:

When demand plummets, costs almost drop to zero, failing to reflect the true resource utilization.

When demand surges, blob fees will be instantly pushed up, Rollup costs will skyrocket, and block generation will be delayed.

The severe fluctuations actually stem from the protocol's inability to perceive the complete price structure, adjusting prices solely based on short-term “consumption volume.”

The EIP-7918 upgrade in Fusaka is designed to address the issue of fluctuating fees. The core idea is to prevent Blob fees from fluctuating uncontrollably and instead set a reasonable price range for them.

It adds a layer of minimum reserve price to the pricing system:

When the price falls below the execution cost threshold, the algorithm will automatically apply the brakes to prevent costs from being driven to nearly zero;

At the same time, limit the price adjustment speed during high load to prevent costs from skyrocketing.

Another EIP-7892 makes Ethereum more friendly to Layer 2. It allows the network to dynamically fine-tune the capacity, quantity, and size of blobs like adjusting a knob. There is no need to initiate a complete hard fork for parameter adjustments like before the upgrade.

When L2 requires higher throughput or lower latency, the mainnet can respond instantly to match these needs, significantly enhancing the system's flexibility and scalability.

Security and Usability

Security

Scaling allows Ethereum to handle more transactions, but it also increases the potential attack surface. A DoS attack, or Denial of Service attack, can lead to network congestion, transaction delays, and even node paralysis, significantly reducing the user experience and security of the entire chain.

Ethereum originally had strong anti-DoS design; these improvements are not fixes for defects, but rather an additional layer of protection on top of the existing security framework.

In simple terms, if Ethereum is a highway, then the four EIPs of Fusaka are like simultaneously regulating the speed of vehicles (EIP-7823), the weight of vehicles (EIP-7825), tolls (EIP-7883), and the length of vehicles (EIP-7934) on the highway, limiting computational load, transaction volume, operating costs, and block size from multiple dimensions, allowing for an increase in traffic flow while ensuring all vehicles can pass quickly, achieving Ethereum's robust, smooth, and attack-resistant expansion.

Usability

For users, using the earlier analogy of the highway: in a nutshell, pre-confirmation means being able to reserve a parking space in advance at the highway entrance, with the exit time locked in before the vehicle enters the station, and the block confirmation is almost instantaneous.

For developers: Fusaka optimizes the execution environment: improves contract computation efficiency, reduces the cost of complex operations, and supports hardware keys, fingerprints, and mobile device logins, simplifying account management and user interaction.

Actual impact

Putting technology aside for a moment, how significant are the changes in user experience and ecosystem? Just look at the picture to understand:

Due to space limitations, I will select and elaborate on the topics that everyone may be more concerned about:

Staking will become safer and more stable.

In the past, becoming an Ethereum validator was more like a professional sport - the high hardware threshold, complex operational processes, and data synchronization times that could take days made it daunting for ordinary users. The Fusaka upgrade is truly bringing this into the “civilian era.”

With the launch of the PeerDAS mechanism, nodes only need to sample download and store about 1/8 of the data fragments when verifying the availability of blob data, significantly reducing bandwidth and storage costs. What is the result?

Before the Fusaka upgrade, according to the official blog of Ethereum.org, 32 ETH validators could run nodes stably on devices with only 8 GB of memory. The upcoming Fusaka upgrade will further reduce the bandwidth and storage requirements for validators. Let's take a visual look at the data:

On the Fusaka testnet, the bandwidth required to become a validating node is approximately 25 Mb/s.

Actually, the requirements for this device are not high. After the Fusaka upgrade, more home devices can run Ethereum verification nodes under good and stable network conditions, enjoying native staking rewards.

Fusaka makes home-level nodes a reality - no longer just for professional operators, more household devices can join the network verification, jointly ensuring the security of Ethereum, while directly sharing staking rewards.

This is a true decentralized enhancement. The lowering of the operational threshold means more independent validators joining in, and more validators lead to a more stable, more resilient, and more decentralized Ethereum.

From an investor's perspective, this is also an optimization of the staking risk structure: when validator nodes are no longer concentrated among a few large operators, the chain can maintain stability under high load; fluctuations decrease, and the yield curve becomes smoother.

High-frequency interaction: Fusaka opens the era of “real-time Ethereum”.

In the Web3 world, DeFi, payments, and AI Agents share a common bottleneck: they all require a real-time responsive network.

In the past, Ethereum was secure but not smooth enough. A block every 12 seconds was sufficient for a single large transfer; however, for continuous instruction calls of AI agents and millisecond-level settlements for on-chain payments, this pace is clearly too slow.

Fusaka changed everything.

With PeerDAS, gas limit expansion, and reduced L2 costs, Ethereum has become more suitable for hosting high-frequency interactive applications.

We may soon witness a more instantaneous and explosive Ethereum ecosystem.

Let's talk about DeFi in detail:

Fusaka not only increases throughput but also directly optimizes the operational experience of DeFi. Lending, synthetic assets, and high-frequency trading protocols can all “run faster and cost less.”

Here are a few examples of common protocols:

Aave: The loan liquidation window is shortened, and the liquidation fees have decreased. This is due to the reduced L2 upload costs, allowing liquidation transactions to be packaged faster, thereby reducing slippage and delay risks.

Synthetix: The instant settlement time for synthetic assets has been reduced, and the contract interaction fees have decreased. The increase in Blob capacity allows for large contract calls to no longer be limited, making capital operation more efficient.

High-frequency DEX: The depth of the liquidity pool is improved, and large trades no longer generate significant slippage. The driving force behind this is the expansion of the block Gas limit and lower L2 upload fees, which greatly enhance liquidity utilization.

Ending

The potential brought by the Fusaka upgrade is enormous; it could become the most ecologically driven milestone upgrade for Ethereum since the Merge and Dencun.

From an 8-fold increase in on-chain data capacity, a sharp drop in transaction fees, and a several-fold increase in throughput, to a lower barrier for validators—these changes combined will invigorate the Ethereum ecosystem in this new phase following the Fusaka upgrade.

We should all observe carefully: after Fusaka, will Ethereum usher in a whole new growth cycle?