EIP-4844: The Ethereum upgrade that will lower your fees

Ethereum faces a historical dilemma: maintaining decentralization while processing thousands of transactions without fees skyrocketing. The solution comes in the form of EIP-4844, a transitional upgrade towards full danksharding that will revolutionize the network's capacity.

The problem that EIP-4844 aims to solve

For years, Ethereum validators and developers have sought to scale without sacrificing security. Previous updates like The Merge improved processing, but the network still processes barely 15 transactions per second (TPS) on its base layer. Layer 2 rollups achieve around 100 TPS, figures insufficient to compete globally.

The fees remain prohibitive for millions of users. This is where EIP-4844 comes in: a proposal for improvement that introduces a new temporary data storage mechanism called “blobs”, capable of increasing TPS to approximately 1,000 as a precursor to full danksharding, which could reach 100,000 TPS.

How does the blob mechanism work?

EIP-4844 ( proto-danksharding, named after Proto Lambda and Dankrad Feist ) implements a new type of transaction: the blob-carrying transaction. Unlike normal transactions, these data carriers include large binary objects that are temporarily attached to the blocks without traditionally increasing their size.

The innovation lies in a fundamental distinction: while the regular block space is permanently stored ( with a maximum size of approximately 940 KB) and is visible to the Ethereum Virtual Machine, the blobs operate under different rules:

• Limited durability: Blobs only persist for a few weeks, not forever.
• Differentiated economy: They cost 16 gas per byte in conventional blocks, but very little bandwidth is required for storing blobs.
• Strategic location: Reside in the consensus layer, not in the computationally expensive execution layer.
• Invisibility for EVM: They are not visible or executable by the Ethereum Virtual Machine, but are available for other protocols that require them.

This design allows for a drastic increase in capacity without overloading the nodes with higher computational requirements, thus avoiding centralization.

Data Sharding: From Concept to Implementation

Sharding is a database technique that divides information into smaller groups. When applied to blockchain, Ethereum aims to implement a variant called danksharding, considered the ultimate “scalability killer.”

The road to full danksharding is extensive. EIP-4844 paves the way by implementing most of the necessary logic without activating the actual sharding. It will also introduce mechanisms such as:

• Renewed execution layer logic
• Strict verification rules
• Multidimensional commission markets
• Proposer/constructor separation to mitigate the maximum extractable value

The real impact for users

Once implemented ( it was estimated for the second half of 2023, although there were adjustments ), EIP-4844 will offer tangible benefits:

Dramatically reduced fees: Blob space is exponentially cheaper than regular block space. Layer 2 rollup users, who rely on publishing data on-chain, will see their costs plummet.

Faster transactions: The increase in capacity to 1,000 TPS will relieve network congestion, improving confirmation times.

Restored competitiveness: Ethereum will position itself better against other L1 blockchains in terms of cost and speed, accelerating mass adoption.

Ecosystem Sustainability: Decentralized application developers will have more comfortable margins to keep their services economically viable.

Path to Maturity

It is important to note that blob data is deleted after weeks. What happens if you need to access old information? The blobs will reside on Ethereum's consensus layer, which acts as a secure real-time bulletin board, but the complete data should remain available in external long-term storage solutions.

EIP-4844 is part of a roadmap focused on rollups, interconnected with other improvements such as the EIP-1559 fee adjustment for blobs. The upgrade represents a fundamental milestone in the ongoing evolution of Ethereum as a global transaction network.

The near future

The successful implementation of EIP-4844 will confirm that Ethereum is on the right track towards scalability without compromising decentralization or security. While most noticeable changes will be in lower costs and improved speeds, the technical importance transcends numbers: it paves the way for full danksharding that will exponentially multiply processing capacity.

For the average user, EIP-4844 means one thing: Ethereum becomes more usable every day. The numbers will continue to improve, but the spirit of the upgrade is to restore the original promise: a global, decentralized, secure, and accessible financial network for all.