- Inscriptions on blobs are erasing the effects of the Dencun upgrade on Ethereum Layer 2 chains.
- Responding to the situation, Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin has outlined the next steps in the network’s scaling roadmap.
- According to Buterin, the focus of scaling improvements is increasingly shifting to Layer 2 chains.
The Dencun upgrade has been hailed as a watershed moment for Ethereum‘s scalability for setting the groundwork for the network’s sharding roadmap and dramatically dropping fees on Layer 2 chains with the introduction of blobs.
Less than a month after the upgrade, however, the visible effects of the Dencun upgrade have been all but reversed as inscriptions make their comeback on Ethereum Layer 2 chains. This time, this controversial practice of embedding data on the blockchain has been uniquely reimagined for blobs, earning the portmanteau word “blobscriptions.”
The advent of these blobscriptions has highlighted the limitations of blobs in scaling Layer 2 chains: fees will rise with blob space demand. In light of recent events, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has explored what comes next in Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, highlighting that there is still more work to be done.
Moving Ethereum Scaling From “One-to-N”
In a blog post on Thursday, March 28, Buterin contended that following the introduction of blobs, scaling Ethereum was no longer a “zero-to-one” problem but a “one-to-N,” suggesting that the foundation had already been set. With this foundation in place, the developer argued that the focus gradually shifted from addressing concerns on the Layer 1 chain to the Layer 2 chains.
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Nonetheless, Buterin conceded that there was still work to be done in light of recent events. The developer highlighted that the next focus would be realizing data availability sampling (DAS).
Traditionally, every node in a blockchain downloads the entire network dataset to verify it. However, this is cumbersome and a bottleneck for large chains like Ethereum. DAS has been proposed to lighten this workload performed by nodes by allowing network verification with only small random samples of the entire dataset. Buterin tipped DAS to improve blob space significantly, as nodes would only store a fraction of the blob.
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Following the implementation of DAS, the Ethereum co-founder disclosed that the scaling focus would shift to Layer 2 improvements to use the available data space better.
Some of the recommendations made by Buterin included exploring data compression techniques and Plasma techniques, which only require data to be posted to the Layer 1 chain in exceptional situations. In addition to these, the developer recommended the improvement of execution-related constraints and overall security.
On the Flipside
- Despite the blobscription craze, Layer 2 fees remain far lower than fees on the Ethereum mainnet.
- Proto-danksharding introduced with the Dencun upgrade is just the first step of Ethereum’s danksharding scaling roadmap.
Why This Matters
Vitalik Buterin’s statements suggest that Ethereum’s scaling roadmap is well underway with the Dencun upgrade despite recent hurdles with blobscriptions. At the same time, his statements outline the next steps to be taken to build on the success of the Dencun upgrade.
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