
Blob Fees Are Getting Smarter
Speculative Bots Are Crowding L2s
Gas Is Going Multi-Dimensional
The Blobpool Needs a Redesign
Berlinterop Accelerates Fusaka
Ethereum’s new blob data format (introduced via EIP-4844) was designed to help Layer 2s scale more efficiently. But blob fees are currently too reactive: they can drop to near-zero when demand is low, and take hours to rise again when traffic picks up.
What’s changing?
The BLOB_BASE_COST proposal sets a minimum blob fee based on the execution cost of the transaction. That way, blob space isn’t underpriced, and network resources are more fairly used.
Why it matters:
Faster recovery from congestion
More stable pricing
Fairer cost coverage for node operators
Timeline:
Included in Fusaka Devnet 2 launching June 23, 2025
Expected on mainnet in late 2025 with the Fusaka hard fork
A new paper reveals that over 50% of gas on Base and Optimism is used by speculative arbitrage bots engaging in “optimistic MEV.” These bots blindly send trades hoping to make a profit—even if most attempts fail.
Why it’s a problem:
Fills blockspace with failed trades
Crowds out regular users
Bots pay relatively little in fees
Solutions being explored:
Fee model changes (e.g. charging more for reverted trades)
Private or encrypted mempools
Sequencer-level filtering
Shared sequencing and block auctions
MEV redistribution models (like MEV Burn)
In practice:
Arbitrum’s private mempool already helps reduce MEV spam
More L2s are tweaking gas pricing and transaction inclusion logic
Today, Ethereum bundles all resource usage—computation, storage, bandwidth—into one “gas” number. That’s not very efficient.
This research proposes multi-dimensional gas metering, where each resource gets its own gas limit and fee market.
Benefits:
Fairer pricing
Better network throughput
Greater security margins
Roadmap Highlights:
Now – 2025: New opcodes (like EVM-384) to better reflect resource use
2025–2026: Expand to 2D or 3D gas models (e.g. separate fees for execution, calldata, blobs)
Post-2026: Redesign EVM to fully support resource-specific pricing and limits
Ethereum’s blob mempool (a waiting area for blob-carrying transactions) currently gossips entire blobs—which is becoming unsustainable as blob counts increase.
Proposal:
Implement a vertically sharded blobpool, where nodes only share the columns of blob data they’re responsible for verifying
Add a ticket or deposit system to prevent spam by requiring “blobspace rights” to submit blobs
Timeline:
June 2025 (Fusaka): PeerDAS goes live, but blobpool remains full-blob
Late 2025 (Glamsterdam): Vertically sharded blobpool + auction system expected
The Berlinterop workshop (held during Berlin Blockchain Week) brought devs and researchers together to push forward key Ethereum upgrades. Here’s what happened:
🔥 Short-term:
Fusaka Devnet 2 launched, with plans to release a final Sepolia testnet by late summer 2025
Gas limit increases (to ~45M per block) finalized and soon to roll out
Fast-tracking client implementation readiness
đź”® Long-term:
Slot restructuring: shorter slot durations for faster confirmations
History expiry: dropping old pre-Merge history to lighten nodes
Consensus hardening: 26 resilience goals identified
L2 & zk collaboration: roadmap includes more blobs, faster finality, and standardized syscalls
Upgrade Area | What’s Changing | When |
---|---|---|
Blob Fees | Introduce BLOB_BASE_COST minimum | Fusaka (Q3 2025) |
MEV Spam | Fee tweaks, mempool filters, PBS | Ongoing in L2s |
Gas Metering | Multi-dimensional pricing | 2025–2026+ |
Blobpool Design | Vertical sharding + ticket system | Glamsterdam (Late 2025) |
Berlinterop Devnets | Fusaka devnets, gas increase, testnet prep | Summer 2025 |
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