By Michael Scott
During the Ethereum Taipei event, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin admitted surprisingly that layer-2 networks are yet to embrace ‘blobs’ despite the Decun upgrade.
The Ethereum co-founder lamented that the uptake from layer-2 networks is relatively lower than expected following the Dencun upgrade.
Vitalik issued the statement when responding to an inquiry by Rug Radio. The crypto developer addressed the question at ETH Taipei whether he considered Dencun’s implementation to realize the expected results.
Vitalik hedged on the question by indicating that ascertaining whether Dencun’s upgrade realized better than anticipated results is relative to what one implies by better.
Buterin hailed the developers for the flawless implementation of Dencun’s upgrade. He reflected on the lackluster contribution to the network traffic on the layer-2 networks since the upgrade went live last Wednesday.
Buterin Observes Low Usage Despite Dencun Network Upgrade
The Ethereum creator purposed to answer questions from media outlets, including Rug Radio. He discussed milestones realized by the Dencun network upgrade. Buterin confessed that the usage amount is interestingly low.
Dencun upgrade features blobs regarded as novel data storage that leverages proto-dank sharding. The data storage solution temporarily permits storing the layer-2 networks’ data on the chain. The temporary storage takes a month rather than forever. The solution drastically lowers layer-2 gas fees to nearly zero levels.
Buterin informed the media outlets that the core developers of Ethereum had anticipated that the Dencun upgrade would facilitate layer-2 networks by using three blobs per block. Buterin noted that the usage was alarmingly low at 67% below the target levels.
Buterin quickly clarified that layer-2 networks have not exited the traffic since the Dencun upgrade implementation. Instead, layer-2 networks have doubled in transaction volume since the Dencun upgrade last week.
The traffic hit the highest on the Coinbase-owned layer two network- Base. Also, transactions plummeted on the Coinbase Wallet and Coinbase.com platforms.
Thursday morning, I saw the gas fees within the L-2 network Base to test a third of the levels before the Dencun upgrade. The surge in gas fees is attributed to trading bots flooding the network fueled by the meme coin-linked frenzy.
The transaction costs within the Base rose sharply. Kofi indicated that it became more expensive to execute transactions on Base compared to the gas fees incurred in other L2s.
Buterin attributed the high cost to the surge in activity of the trading bots, which were ready to meet the high-priority fees.
Layer 2 Traffic Following Dencun Upgrade Below Expectation
Nevertheless, Buterin is among other Ethereum stakeholders who anticipated spikes in the layer-2 traffic. The stakeholders forecasted that L2 traffic would soar, considering that the Dencun upgrade would dramatically lower the gas fees.
Buterin considered that the Dencun upgrade would offer a timely reprieve when gas fees incurred on the Ethereum main net have spiked to intolerable levels for most retail users.
Marius Van Der Wijden, part of the Ethereum core developers team, calmed the fears. Instead, he called it early to examine the blobs’ success as layer-2 networks exist yet to integrate the Dencun upgrade.
Wijden observed that with several L2s yet to switch to blobs, enormous room exists for growth.
Polygon is among the layer-2s yet to fully update to the Dencun. David Silverman, who heads Polygon Labs product, anticipates that nearly all layer-2s will fully integrate Dencun in two months.
Blob Usage to Rise Exponentially
Wijden expresses optimism that blob usage is rising exponentially, given the low gas fees permitted by the traffic. The rising demand for blob space would stimulate higher transaction costs for layer 2, although the extent is uncertain.
On Thursday, Vitalik’s response in Taipei echoed the optimistic sentiment that current rollups should leverage the cheap transaction costs.
The Ethereum creator reiterated that blob usage would ultimately meet the expectations. He expressed admiration for blob, realizing usage levels in the coming months.