EIP-4844 Through the Lens of Network Load

With L2 transaction fees now dominated by fixed overhead, the bottleneck shifts from on-chain execution to off-chain sequencing. High-throughput chains like Base and Arbitrum now compete on mempool management and pre-confirmations, not just cheap blob posting.

• New Metric: Time-To-Inclusion vs. Finality
• Risk: Centralized sequencers become single points of failure for UX
• Opportunity: Shared sequencers (Espresso, Astria) and based sequencing emerge.

Blobs enable light nodes to verify data availability with ~1 MB of downloads per slot instead of downloading full blocks. This collapses the hardware requirement curve, making home staking and Ethereum consensus participation more accessible.

• Shift: From expensive full nodes to lightweight PBS-reliant validators
• Result: Greater decentralization at the consensus layer
• Next: Full Danksharding will push sampling to the limit.

Cheap data exposes the next bottleneck: proof generation. ZK-Rollups like zkSync and Starknet now face immense computational load to keep pace with cheap blob capacity. The race is for faster provers (GPUs, ASICs) and proof aggregation.

• Constraint: Proving time limits L2 throughput more than Ethereum's data cap
• Innovation: Parallel provers, recursive proofs (Polygon zkEVM), and shared proving networks
• Metric: Proofs-per-second (PPS) becomes the key infra KPI.

Blob capacity is finite and will be auctioned. L2s must compete with each other and future data-hungry apps (e.g., EigenDA, Celestia rollups) for this subsidized space. The ~0.75 MB per slot limit is a hard ceiling.

• Blob Gas Fees will become volatile during congestion.
• Sequencer Profit Margins are now tied to data market efficiency.
• Long-term scaling requires moving beyond Ethereum for data.

Maximizing bits-per-byte in each blob is the first line of defense. This isn't just about general compression; it's about L2-specific optimizations.

• Arbitrum's Stylus and zkSync's Boojum upgrade enable tighter state diffs and more efficient proof systems.
• Custom Precompiles for common operations (e.g., signature verification) reduce calldata overhead.
• Goal: Push transaction cost reductions beyond the ~10x from blobs alone.

Decoupling execution from data availability (DA) is the endgame. The Optimism Superchain is architecting for a multi-DA future.

• Planned integration with EigenDA provides a high-throughput, cost-stable data layer.
• Alt-DA layers act as a pressure valve, keeping blob demand and fees in check.
• Enables interoperable rollups (e.g., Base, Zora) to share security and data infrastructure.

Intelligent transaction ordering and proof aggregation at the sequencer level dramatically improves blob utilization. This is a software race.

• StarkNet's Sequencer uses Cairo's efficiency to batch 1000s of transactions into a single proof update.
• Shared Provers (like Polygon's AggLayer) amortize fixed proving costs across multiple chains.
• Reduces the frequency of L1 submissions, making blob usage strategic rather than constant.

Rollups were forced to post call data to Ethereum's expensive calldata, creating a ~90% cost floor for user transactions. This bottleneck limited scaling and kept fees artificially high, even on optimistic and ZK rollups like Arbitrum and zkSync.

• Cost Bottleneck: Data costs dominated L2 economics.
• Throughput Cap: Limited by mainnet block gas, not L2 execution.
• Fee Volatility: User fees spiked with mainnet congestion.

EIP-4844 introduces blob-carrying transactions with dedicated ~125 kB data blobs that are cheap and auto-delete after ~18 days. This creates a new, abundant data market separate from EVM execution gas.

• Cost Decoupling: Blob fees follow independent, volatile EIP-1559 mechanics.
• Scalability Leap: Targets ~0.3 MB per slot, a ~4x initial data capacity increase.
• Forward Compatibility: The foundational schema for full Danksharding.

Network load migrates from the Execution Layer to the Consensus Layer. Validators now must propagate and store blobs temporarily, increasing bandwidth and storage requirements but offloading the EVM. This is a strategic trade-off for scalable data availability.

• Bandwidth Impact: ~2 MB/min of extra p2p data for validators.
• Storage Impact: ~20 GB/month of temporary blob storage.
• Client Diversity Risk: Increased hardware requirements could centralize nodes.

L2 transaction fees are now dominated by execution, not data. This enables sub-cent transactions and makes high-volume, low-value applications like micro-payments and fully on-chain games economically viable. Projects like Starknet and Base see immediate benefit.

• Fee Reduction: Target of 10-100x cheaper L2 fees.
• New Design Space: Viable data-heavy appchains and volition models.
• Ecosystem Flywheel: Cheaper fees drive more activity, absorbing blob supply.

Blob fees are not magically low; they are subject to supply/demand. A surge in L2 activity or the rise of blob-consuming apps (e.g., EigenDA, Celestia-fueled rollups) could create a competitive blob market, leading to fee spikes and renewed congestion concerns on a new resource.

• New Fee Market: Blobs have independent, unpredictable pricing.
• Resource Competition: Between L2s and alt-DA providers.
• Monitoring Overhead: CTOs must now track two fee markets: gas and blobs.

EIP-4844 is a necessary infrastructure upgrade that removes the primary bottleneck for L2 scaling. It does not make fees permanently cheap, but it creates the headroom for them to become cheap under normal load. The long-term game is full Danksharding, scaling blobs to ~1.3 MB per slot.

• Immediate Win: Unlocks current L2 scaling potential.
• Strategic Bet: Validator load increases to enable user-scale growth.
• Roadmap Signal: Confirms Ethereum's commitment to rollup-centric scaling.