Since its launch in 2015, ethereum has played a pioneering role in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, providing an environment conducive to the development of smart contracts and decentralised applications. Now, a major update scheduled for March 2024 promises to revolutionise Vitalik Buterin's blockchain, introducing innovative technology that could profoundly reshape the use of ethereum and impact the entire cryptocurrency market.
On 8 February, Tim Beiko of the Ethereum Foundation announced the imminent arrival of 'blobs' on the mainnet, with an update scheduled for around 3pm on 13 March. Far from being a reference to some fantastic creature, these 'blobs' actually represent a significant advance in data management on ethereum. This development follows on from the 'Merge' and the Shanghai update, marking an important step forward with the introduction of proto-danksharding. Blobs, or Binary Large Objects, introduce a new storage format that optimises the space and cost of data on ethereum.
With the deployment of various rollups on ethereum, such as optimistic and ZK Rollups, the way transactions are processed outside the main chain has been transformed, with the aim of reducing costs and increasing the network's processing capacity. Vitalik Buterin himself has strongly encouraged the development of these technologies, seeing them as essential to ethereum's future. The 'Dencun' update and EIP-4844, at the heart of this development, aim to further improve ethereum's scalability by fully exploiting the capabilities of rollups and introducing a more efficient method of data fragmentation.
The 'Dencun' upgrade will introduce EIP-4844, the cornerstone of The Surge, the scalability stage linked to rollups and data fragmentation. Successfully tested on the Goerli and Sepolia testnets, and recently on Holesky, this update aims to multiply by more than a hundred the number of transactions per second that the blockchain can handle, based on the efficiency of rollups.
Blobs will transform data storage for layer 2, drastically reducing transaction costs and increasing network efficiency. By moving large data storage to these new compartments, 'Dencun' promises a significant reduction in transaction costs on layer 2, with some estimating a reduction of up to 90%.
The introduction of 'blobs' and the 'Dencun' update could redefine the cryptocurrency landscape by strengthening ethereum's dominant position. By reducing costs and increasing scalability, ethereum could consolidate its status as the leading blockchain platform, challenging the relevance of the 'Ethereum Killers' and redefining the future of blockchain technologies.
These advances mark a crucial step in ethereum's evolution, promising to significantly reduce transaction costs and increase network capacity, which could well change the game for the future of cryptocurrencies. With the 'Dencun' update and the introduction of 'blobs', ethereum is poised to cross a new threshold of innovation, paving the way for a more scalable, efficient and accessible ecosystem.
