Key insights
- Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade boosts block gas limits to 60 million, improving transactions.
- smart contract processing capabilities in Ethereum Fusaka.
- PeerDAS, a new validation system in Fusaka, enhances network speed and scalability by sampling transaction data from multiple peers.
- Fusaka marks the second phase of Ethereum’s upgrade roadmap following Pectra.
Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade has officially been activated on the Sepolia testnet, marking a pivotal moment in the network’s journey toward enhanced scalability and performance. This deployment, part of a comprehensive three-phase rollout, follows the successful Holesky testnet activation on October 1 and sets the stage for further stress testing ahead of Ethereum.
Improving Block Gas Limits and Transaction Capacity
The Fusaka upgrade focuses on key improvements, particularly in increasing Ethereum’s block gas limit. The limit is now set to 60 million, allowing Ethereum’s network to process more transactions and handle complex smart contract operations efficiently. This change is designed to test the capacity of the Ethereum network at higher transaction volumes and assess whether nodes can maintain stability when handling such large blocks.
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Gabriel Trintinalia, a protocol engineer at ConsenSys’s Besu client, emphasized that extensive engineering work was done to ensure that both the hardware and networking setups of Ethereum nodes can reliably handle the new, higher-capacity blocks without causing instability. This adjustment is crucial as Ethereum aims to expand its ability to support a growing number of decentralized applications (dApps) and transactions.
Peer Data Availability Sampling Enhances Speed and Scalability
Alongside the gas limit increase, Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade also introduces Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS). This innovative feature enables Ethereum validators to verify transaction data by sampling small pieces from multiple peers. As a result, PeerDAS significantly boosts both speed and scalability, all while preserving the decentralization that is at the core of Ethereum’s ethos.
Paul Harris, another Fusaka core developer and protocol engineer at ConsenSys’s Teku client, explained that PeerDAS reduces the data storage burden on nodes by enabling validators to verify transactions more efficiently. This is a key step in ensuring Ethereum’s scalability beyond what was possible with previous methods.
Fusaka’s Role in Ethereum’s Ongoing Roadmap
The Fusaka upgrade is part of Ethereum’s broader roadmap to improve its network performance. Following the Pectra update earlier this year, which introduced features like gas fee reductions and expanded data blob limits. The final trial for Fusaka is expected to occur on the Hoodi testnet on October 28, with the mainnet launch slated for December.
This upgrade builds on Ethereum successful transition to a proof-of-stake network, which was completed with the Shanghai update in April 2023. Additionally, Ethereum’s ecosystem continues to evolve, with each upgrade working towards greater decentralization and reduced energy consumption.
