Interpreting Ethereum's Fusaka Upgrade: Behind Vitalik's Praise, Is This the Real Takeoff Point for a Global Settlement Layer?

1. PeerDAS Is Ethereum’s First Truly Meaningful “Capacity Multiplier”

After Dencun, Ethereum reduced L2 data costs through Blobs, but the data volume was still constrained, because each node still needed to download the full Blob data. This means:

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  bandwidth becomes the bottleneck
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  network capacity cannot scale linearly with ecosystem expansion
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  Ethereum is still seen as a “medium-performance settlement chain”

And PeerDAS completely changes this: each node only needs to verify shard data, and does not need to download the full data.

In other words, Ethereum is truly functioning like a modular system for the first time: the entire network jointly undertakes data verification, each node carries a small part – security is not reduced, but capacity increases.

This means Ethereum breaks the single-point bottleneck for the first time: not only scaling, but “scaling without downgrade” (no sacrifice of decentralization). This is a target that almost all L1 upgrades over the past decade struggled to achieve.

2. A Theoretical 8x Capacity Increase Means the L2 Fee Curve Will See a New Inflection Point

Essentially, L2 fees come from two parts: execution fees within the L2 chain, and the Blob Fee paid to Ethereum mainnet for data submission. Now PeerDAS increases data capacity, making Blob space more abundant, which most directly impacts L2 fees: L2 submission costs decline further, and the most expensive “data access” portion is decompressed, pushing Ethereum’s L2 cost model toward a new equilibrium point.

In outcome terms, L2 transaction fees will move even closer to zero, and lower fees mean:

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  better user experience
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  higher L2 project activity
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  many on-chain games and DeFi modules become feasible
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  Ethereum’s settlement-layer position becomes even more solid

The purpose is clear. Isn’t this result exactly the most important target of Ethereum’s roadmap all along?

3. Ethereum Officially Enters the “Two Hard Forks Per Year Era”

For a system the size of Ethereum, two hard forks per year is extremely incredible. Compared with BTC averaging once every 4 years and Solana having 2–3 minor updates, ETH now having two major forks per year can be said to be the industry’s highest speed for continuously iterating underlying infrastructure.

This represents:

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  faster upgrade cadence
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  technical progress no longer waits for a “big version”
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  community governance and developer collaboration become more efficient
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  a frequently updated infrastructure becomes better soil for the ecosystem

1. Splitting All Data into Small Pieces, Distributing Verification Pressure

The old data model:

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  every node must download all data
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  the more nodes, the lower the performance

The PeerDAS model:

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  data is cut into many small pieces
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  each node only verifies a small set of fragments
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  the whole network collaborates to complete overall verification

This is extremely similar to BitTorrent’s peer-to-peer download logic, allowing Ethereum to achieve true distributed data verification for the first time.

2. Ethereum Does Not Need to Sacrifice Security Parameters to Scale

Traditional scaling models:

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  increase block size, but decentralization declines
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  raise node hardware requirements, but security declines
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  multi-chain models, but consistency is sacrificed
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  lower the security threshold, but risk rises

PeerDAS’s breakthrough is: it sacrifices nothing.

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  scale without changing block size
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  scale without increasing node costs
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  scale without changing the consensus mechanism
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  scale while maintaining the highest decentralization

This is exactly the “correct scaling path” that Vitalik has emphasized for years.

3. Redefining Data Availability, Breaking the Ceiling for L2 Development

L2’s current bottleneck is entirely “data availability cost.” The higher the fee, the harder L2 is to scale; PeerDAS turns data availability from a “bottleneck” into a “scalable resource.”

It will bring huge ecosystem changes:

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  OP, ARB, ZKSync data costs decline
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  more ZK Rollups emerge and flourish
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  on-chain games, social, and public chain projects all move toward L2
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  PeerDAS will be the starting point of L2 explosion

4. PeerDAS Is the Foundation of Future Scaling, Not the Endpoint

PeerDAS is the beginning of “large-scale scaling,” not the end. Two key future directions:

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  Danksharding (in phased progress)
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  Full Data Sampling

By then, Ethereum’s data capacity will not just be 8x – it will grow by multiples.

1. L2 Fees Will Enter a “Long-Term Downtrend”

Current L2 fees of $0.02–$0.1 may drop to the $0.003–$0.008 range. The impact of fee reduction is huge:

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  on-chain games can run more smoothly
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  large-scale social networks become more feasible
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  AI + blockchain applications can be deployed
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  user participation no longer has cost pain

This is the first step toward “using blockchain with no threshold.”

2. L2 Competition Shifts from “Cheap” to “Experience”

What did L2 competition used to be?

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  who is cheaper
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  whose Blob fee is lower
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  whose compression algorithm is better

After Fusaka, price differences shrink, and competition shifts to:

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  wallet experience
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  ecosystem depth
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  local liquidity advantages
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  developer toolchains
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  cross-chain abstraction level
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  customization ability in AI / gaming / social fields

Layer2 will move from a “price war” to an “ecosystem war.”

3. L2 Will Enter a Large-Scale Reshuffle Phase

Fee decline → activity rises → capital flows in → L2 premium expands, but the upgrade will also puncture some bubbles:

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  L2s relying only on “low fees” as their unique selling point will fall behind
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  L2s without self-developed tech will be marginalized
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  L2s lacking ecosystem will decline rapidly

The final pattern may become:

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  Ethereum mainnet as the settlement layer
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  3 to 5 major L2s forming super ecosystems
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  countless vertical application chains becoming ecosystem subchains

1. PeerDAS Implementation Complexity Is High

Data sampling, distributed verification, node collaboration… if any module has a bug, it could lead to:

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  temporary block missing
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  data fragment loss
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  node forks
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  increased network latency

Although testnets have run for months, mainnet is always more complex.

2. L1 Fees Won’t Drop, and User Understanding Cost May Rise

Some users may mistakenly think: “Ethereum upgraded, so Gas should drop, right?” But L1 fees were never supposed to decline. The industry needs to re-educate users:

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  what gets cheaper is L2
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  L1 is always the settlement layer, value layer, clearing layer
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  L1 is expensive so that L2 can be cheaper

Understanding this is a threshold for users.

3. Bandwidth Requirements for Nodes May Continue Rising in the Future

Although PeerDAS reduces node pressure, as:

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  Blob limits increase
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  data volume doubles
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  Danksharding phases advance
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  node bandwidth will still grow eventually, which may cause small nodes to exit

This is a challenge Ethereum must solve in the future.