Following the successful rollout of Pectra, Ethereum's most substantial upgrade in over a year, the network's core developers have shifted their focus towards the next major chain upgrade, dubbed Fusaka. Pectra, which introduced significant code changes to Ethereum since the Merge in 2022, brought about key modifications designed to simplify staking for institutions, enhance wallet accessibility, and boost transaction efficiency. Developers have begun planning for Fusaka and have agreed to include an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) called 'PeerDAS', which could enable the network to support larger 'blobs' of transaction data.
Blobs, introduced during the Dencun upgrade, are dedicated spaces for large chunks of data related to transactions, stored off-chain to reduce congestion on the Ethereum blockchain and lower gas fees. PeerDAS, short for Peer Data Availability Sampling, would allow validators to download partial data from blobs instead of full blobs to validate whether the data has been posted to the network. This could potentially reduce layer-2 transaction costs and benefit institutions operating validators on the Ethereum blockchain.
According to Parithosh Jayanti, a devops engineer at the Ethereum Foundation, 'PeerDAS is crucial for helping layer-2s scale, as it enables us to significantly increase the blob limit.' Fusaka is scheduled to go live by the end of 2025 and will eventually include additional upgrades beyond PeerDAS. However, Ethereum developers have a history of delaying their upgrades, as seen with Pectra, which was initially set for release at the end of 2024 but was postponed to May 2025 after faulty tests. The Ethereum community has debated whether the non-profit Ethereum Foundation is to blame for not implementing protocol changes quickly enough, as the network's token price has lagged in recent months and developers have migrated to competing ecosystems.