The Pectra upgrade launched on the Ethereum mainnet has quietly changed the structure of the entire Blob data market. Did you still think that Rollup's costs for using Blob were still high and that ETH burning continued to escalate? Wrong. The current data tells us that this is a silent underlying revolution.
From the opening of the Blob era with EIP-4844 to the further increase of the Blob limit with EIP-7691, Ethereum is ramping up its 'data publishing engine'. But the real turning point is the Blob expansion brought by Pectra — the target number of Blobs per block doubled from 3 to 6, with a maximum of 9. This means Ethereum's DA capacity has skyrocketed to an average of 8.15GB per day, while Blob prices have dropped to nearly zero.
This change has brought Rollup into a 'low-cost golden age', while Ethereum validators, nodes, and even the entire ETH supply logic are quietly undergoing changes.
1. Blob prices have been 'cut in half again and again', and the DA market has entered an 'almost free era'.
Within 5 days of Pectra's launch, the daily number of Blobs purchased by Rollup platforms increased from 21,200 to 25,600, an increase of 20.8%. However, even with the increase in Blob usage, it still did not reach two-thirds of the block target — Blob supply far exceeds actual demand, causing prices to plummet.
Data shows that the median cost of each Blob object is only $0.0000000035, with total costs not exceeding $0.0000092 per day. This number indicates that: Rollup's daily payment is less than one-thousandth of a cent. Even more astonishingly, compared to the 60 days before Pectra, Blob costs dropped from $16,000 per day to less than $1.
This low-cost DA space directly enhances the operating profits of Rollup. If you want to further track the Blob market price, capacity usage, and fee change trends, you can perform real-time analysis through Mlion.ai's data dashboard function to grasp first-hand information about the price gap in on-chain resources.
2. Data explosion, increased pressure on nodes: Rollup is 'cheap', but validators are 'struggling'.
Blobs have become cheaper, and Rollups are more active, but the consensus nodes behind the scenes are quietly bearing greater pressure. According to the rules, nodes must retain Blob data for 18 days before deletion. With the increase in Blob usage, the daily data burden on consensus layer nodes continues to expand.
Before the Pectra upgrade, nodes roughly held about 40-44GB of untrimmed data. Now, this number has climbed to a historic high of 44.6GB. If Blob usage continues to approach the target, each node may need to store nearly 100GB of data in the future.
This presents new challenges for node operating costs and hardware requirements, while also bringing more limitations for the future development of Ethereum light clients. Mlion.ai's on-chain address analysis and node monitoring modules can help you track the data pressure changes of key nodes, analyze whether large holders show signs of exit, and mitigate potential risks.
3. ETH burning sharply decreases, Rollup profits surge: Has Pectra weakened the ETH deflation logic?
Another result of the almost free Blob objects is a significant decrease in ETH burning.
Data shows that before Pectra, Blob-related DA activities consumed 11.22 ETH daily; after Pectra, this number dropped to 3.26 ETH, a decrease of 71%. Of this, only 0.01% came from Blob's own costs, while the vast majority came from the execution fees of type 3 transactions.
From the perspective of ETH supply, this undoubtedly reduces the intensity of ETH burning. The fee-burning logic that relied on EIP-1559 has been partially weakened after Blob expansion. However, this is not a bad thing — it gives Rollup more breathing room and makes Ethereum's L2 ecosystem expansion more resilient.
4. Rollup profits soar, Base leads the revenue chart.
The 'cheap DA dividend' brought by Pectra is being rapidly absorbed by Rollup platforms. The on-chain profit margins of Base and Linea reached 98.54% and 98.86%, respectively. Blast's profit margin surged from 60% before Pectra to over 80%.
Base recently set a new revenue high of $1.22 million, with a net profit of $1.12 million, becoming the biggest winner. This means that Rollup is gradually transforming from a 'high-cost on-chain dependent' to a 'profit-oriented operator'.
If you wish to identify the next Base or Linea-like platform, Mlion.ai's AI research reports and ecosystem maps can assist in quickly discovering the core driving forces of on-chain growth based on fee structures, DA utilization rates, user activity, and other dimensions.
Conclusion: The Blob market is being restructured. How will ETH respond to the structural changes after Pectra?
Pectra not only improved Ethereum's data availability but also fundamentally changed the economic model of Blobs. Rollup gained more efficient and low-cost DA capabilities, but it also posed challenges to Ethereum's own resource allocation and deflation mechanism.
Will the decrease in ETH burning slow down the supply tightening logic?
Will the increase in storage pressure on nodes exacerbate the difficulty of decentralization?
Behind Rollup's high profits, is there an opportunity for the reconstruction of pricing mechanisms?
All of this signifies that Ethereum is transitioning from 'protocol incentive logic' to 'resource marketization'. As an ordinary investor, if you wish to see the trend judgment behind the complex mechanisms, leveraging an AI platform like Mlion.ai, which has on-chain analysis, fee tracking, and L2 ecosystem research capabilities, may be your best assistant to ride the market wave.
Disclaimer: The above content is for information sharing only and does not constitute any investment advice! Investment carries risks, and caution is required when entering the market!