In brief
- Ethereum increased its blob target to 14 and the blob limit to 21 in a planned fork.
- On-chain data shows blob usage remains well below capacity despite rising rollup activity.
- The change reflects Ethereum’s move toward tuning data availability rather than relying on major upgrades, Decrypt was told.
Ethereum, the world’s second-largest blockchain network, has increased the amount of data it can handle at one time.
While it’s a minor and expected change, it affects how the network handles increasing application usage and provides a clearer view of how Ethereum plans to scale as that usage continues to grow.
It comes as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin claimed earlier this week that the network’s updates have transformed it into a “fundamentally new and more powerful kind of decentralized network,” that could achieve security, decentralization, and scalability at the same time.
The new focus refers to a mechanism called blobs, which ensures transaction data from Layer 2 rollups such as Base, Optimism, Arbitrum, and Mantle is reliably published on Ethereum.
Rollups are a way to run transactions outside the main Ethereum network, while still relying on it for security. They do the same on the privacy end for zero-knowledge rollups such as zkSync Era, StarkNet, and Scroll, among others.
Activated on Tuesday evening, the second scheduled Blob Parameter Only fork raised the network’s blob target from 10 to 14 and the blob limit from 15 to 21.
Blobs work by keeping rollup data accessible to all network participants for a limited period, so transactions can be checked and state changes can be confirmed without relying on trusted intermediaries.
Data availability layers such as Celestia, EigenDA, and Avail offer alternative ways to publish rollup data. However, at times, those involve a tradeoff between tighter Ethereum integration and higher throughput or lower costs.
Still, since the first Fusaka BPO fork, blob demand has risen steadily without approaching capacity limits, indicating substantial headroom in Ethereum’s data layer.
Data visualization from GrowThePie on whether blob capacity is keeping up with demand since then shows average blob usage hovering well below the target level, even as total blob fees have climbed gradually, suggesting that rollup activity is increasing, but isn’t constrained by supply just yet.
Such a dynamic supports Ethereum’s strategy of scaling data availability incrementally, before congestion emerges.
Scaling by design
Observers speaking with Decrypt say the fork shows Ethereum can now scale by adjusting capacity as needed.
“The BPO2 fork underscores that Ethereum’s scalability is now parametric, not procedural. Blob space remains far from saturation, and the network can expand throughput simply by tuning capacity,” Andrew Gross, who works on technical communications at Blockscout, an open-source block explorer for chains based on the Ethereum Virtual Machine, told Decrypt.
The result, Gross notes, is “smoother rollup fee dynamics, greater data headroom, and a system that scales dynamically.”
Ethereum’s modular architecture “turns data availability into a controllable resource” instead of it becoming a constraint, Gross said. “In effect, Ethereum has evolved into an elastic base layer, capable of expanding with demand without sacrificing decentralization or coordination stability.”
The latest minor fork could be “impactful in cases where blobs are the bottleneck, for instance, it gives some extra headroom for rollups that consistently post near the target,” Christine Erispe, a developer advocate at Ethereum Philippines, told Decrypt.
This means that there would be “more L2 batches per unit time, or the same batches at lower marginal blob price,” she said, adding that in terms of fee stability, “raising the target reduces the probability you ‘live at the edge’ (nearing max), which is where rollups see the worst blob fee spikes and most chaotic batch timing.”
The update also signals Ethereum “can manage near-term rollup scaling pressures with ongoing DA tuning, but it’s a step inside a larger plan,” Erispe said. “These parameter changes give Ethereum operational agility,” and that such structural changes could become “the long game.”
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Source: https://decrypt.co/353816/ethereum-lifts-data-limits-tunes-network-scaling
