Ether has hastened its schedule for the long-awaited Fusaka update, which is now planned to be available on December 3.
This massive upgrade was initially scheduled for 2026. It will expand Ethereum’s Layer 2 (L2) capacity and is expected to drive up to 12,000 transactions per second. The upgrade will also comprise a number of testnet launches in October that will attract attention to the network.
Boosting Transaction Capacity
The Fusaka update will improve Ethereum’s transaction capacity, which has been struggling with scalability. The upgrade will also increase the limit of the blobs, reducing the L2 project fees. This improvement is based on the Dencun upgrade in 2024, which is the next significant decrease in blob fees. Ether developers are working on solutions to enable the network to run more transactions at low operation costs.
Data Availability and Node Optimization
One more critical aspect of the Fusaka upgrade is the implementation of Peer Data Availability Sampling. This will enable the validators to authenticate data through sampling peer nodes rather than downloading entire datasets. The design will reduce the load on the node operators and is particularly useful to rollups. The upgrade may offer up to 10 times more capacity to Ethereum, which may be more efficient for the network.
Security Audits and Ongoing Developments
At this time, the Fusaka update is undergoing a four-week security audit, with $2 million of bounties available through the Ethereum Foundation. The hard fork was scheduled to be launched in November, but has been delayed until December 3. The release will cover 12 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), most of which aim to enhance the level of scalability in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Ethereum is now used to frequent hard forks, and the Fusaka update is perceived as a logical extension of the network’s development. Even with this major development, the ETH price has not been affected much, hovering at an average of 4,563.17.
Impact on Layer 2 Chains
The L2 chains of Ethereum still pay little fees to the dominating network. Although L2 chains have been a significant revenue source in the past, they constitute a relatively insignificant share of the revenues of Ethereum. The implementation of the higher blob capacity will, however, enable L2 protocols to circumvent the usage of calldata, which will help to lessen the congestion on Layer 1 of Ethereum. By September 2021, more than 93 percent of Ethereum transactions had been in L2 networks, but Layer 1 holds a bigger volume of economic value, especially in the DeFi sector. Fusaka update will continue the trend of Ethereum to become more scalable, but liquidity is what will help popularize DeFi protocols.
