Pectra main network online: Quick view of Ethereum Blob usage

Source:[Avail](https://blog.availproject.org/pectra-goes-live-ethereum-blob- usage-report/) ; Translated by: AIMan@Golden Finance

This is the biggest upgrade of Ethereum since Dencun went live 420 days ago, and these changes will improve how Ethereum handles publishing data from L2, as well as other changes included in the upgrade .

Pectra upgrade introduces two key changes to L2 using Ethereum data availability. It increases blob throughput and increases the cost of call data. We analyzed the use of Ethereum blobs since Dencun (EIP-4844) to understand the possible impact of Pectra upgrades on the blob market.

Blob utilization rate

Since November 2024, the number of blobs has been hovering around the target of 3 blobs per block (utilization rate 100%). Although the upper limit is 6, when more than 3 blobs are submitted, the price of submitting blobs will rise, just like Ethereum's fees increase under peak loads. The purpose of this is to provide additional capacity when needed while maintaining the target of 3 blobs per block.

Source: https://dune.com/hildobby/blobs

As the Pectra mainnet goes online, we can expect utilization to increase, moving towards a new goal of 6 blobs per block, with the upper limit rising to 9.

After the Dencun upgrade, it took about 8 months for the Ethereum blob to reach full load. Vitalik Buterin warned in September 2024 (just six months after the Dencun upgrade) that blob space has taken up about 75% and is “close to the upper limit.” He also said, "There is no doubt that there are multiple Layer 2 nodes that have considered migrating to the blob, but ultimately decided not to migrate", mainly because with current capacity, there is not enough space on Ethereum to accommodate them.

Source: https://github.com/ethereum/pm/issues/1153

Under peak loads, Blob fees occasionally soar above call data fees. A month after the Dencun upgrade, Blob basic expenses soared with the rise of the blob subscription boom. Subsequently, with the implementation of Arbitrum LayerZero airdrop, Arbitrum's trading volume also increased, and Blob base fees surged again in June. This time, the data submitted by the L2 node is a blob instead of a call data, so it pays about $550,000 more.

While L2 can implement strategies such as switching to call data when fees rise, slowing down batch submissions, paying more to include its blobs, or simply stop publishing data until the fees stabilize, the fact is that when demand surges, L2 still needs more capacity.

So, which protocols are consuming all the blobs?

The following figure shows the number of blobs published per week and is broken down by Blob Submitter (L2). Note that each line in the following diagram represents the number of blobs published in one week.

Source: https://dune.com/hildobby/blobs

Through quick calculations on napkins, we found that about 150,000 blobs are available per week, with a target rate of 3 blobs per block, which has now increased to about 300,000 blobs per week, with a target rate of 6 blobs per block.

Approximately 7,150 Ethereum blocks per day x 6 blobs per block x 7 days = 300,300 blobs available per week

The Base blockchain has been consuming about one-third of its available capacity, consuming about 50,000 to 60,000 blobs per week. Taiko is another big blob consumer, regularly consuming 20,000 to 25,000 blobs per week. In addition, World Chain and Arbitrum consume between 10,000 and 20,000 per week.

Assuming that these four L2s do not start publishing more data, then after Pectra, their current blob consumption will occupy about 30-40% of the Ethereum blob capacity.

What will happen next?

It is undeniable that the introduction of Rollup can significantly improve the Ethereum ecosystem, bringing higher throughput, more teams, more applications and more users. However, Pectra is known to be just a stopgap measure. Currently, these incremental improvements are undergoing the necessary adjustments to increase throughput and support more Rollups, however the market seems to be ready to digest all the blobs Ethereum can produce.

The complete Danksharding will again provide additional capacity improvements, including the introduction of data availability sampling (DAS), allowing end users to verify data availability from edge devices.

However, if we look at the big picture a little bit, like a blobscriptions boom, or a hot airdrop on some L2 layer causing unrelated network disruptions and congestion, we are still a long way from reaching the throughput needed to support the new global financial system.