Ethereum's Fusaka Upgrade: Did Fees Actually Drop?
Five days ago, Ethereum executed the "Fusaka" hard fork, billed as the "scalability savior". Today, users on Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum and Base are confirming transaction fee drops of 40-60%.
Fusaka introduced PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling), allowing nodes to verify data by sampling small chunks rather than downloading everything. This efficiency allowed for a Block Gas Limit increase to 60 million, effectively widening the pipe for Rollups.
This changes the economics of L2s. They now have higher profit margins and may use this windfall to fund massive incentive programs or subsidize gasless apps. However, cheap blob fees reduce the amount of ETH burned, potentially making ETH slightly inflationary again.
The debate now shifts to "Fragmentation." Critics argue cheap L2s create a messy user experience across fractured chains, while defenders point to future interoperability upgrades.
Fusaka is a technical triumph that cements Ethereum as the high-security settlement layer for a galaxy of cheap L2s.
Have you noticed lower fees on L2s since the upgrade?