Listen, friend, I want to tell you what is happening with Ethereum after its last major update called Pectra. It came into force a month ago, and since then the Ethereum ecosystem has begun to change noticeably — not only for the better, but also with nuances that not everyone is talking about.
What is Pectra and why is it needed?
The main innovation is the support of BLOB objects. To put it simply, blobs are temporary containers for storing large amounts of data. They don't hang in the blockchain forever, but are needed to temporarily and quickly transfer information. This is especially important for so-called rollup networks, secondary networks built on top of Ethereum (such as Arbitrum, Optimism, or Base) that process a bunch of transactions cheaply and quickly, and then transfer compressed information to the main blockchain.
With the addition of blobs, these rollup networks began to pay almost zero for data storage, which means that the fees for ordinary users decreased significantly.
Everything has become faster and cheaper
A week after the activation of Pectra, transactions in rollup networks began to cost less than one tenth of a cent. For comparison, it used to be thousands of dollars a day just for one network.
Analyst Zak Pokorny compared the expenses before and after: before it was about $16,000 a day, but now it's literally a dollar and a dime. All this is thanks to a part of the update called EIP-7691, which allowed more data to be crammed into Ethereum blocks.
As a result, the number of daily block purchases increased to 25,600, and the number of used blob addresses increased by 33% compared to the beginning of May. The network began to work as a truly scalable mechanism.
But the validators are suffering now.
There is also a downside. An increase in data volumes = an increase in the load on those who support the validator network. These are the ones who stake (lock) their ETH and verify transactions. Now they have to process much more data, which means they need more powerful equipment and more costs.
Small validators do not always cope, and in order not to be fined, they began to team up with large operators. This is logical, but not without consequences. If there are more and more large validators, and small ones give up, there is a risk of centralization: several large players will begin to control the network.
Although Blockscout's Skladchikova says it can even improve decentralization if done right. It's a controversial point, really.
ETH has increased in price, but for how long?
Against the background of all these improvements, the price of ETH also jumped, from $1,800 to $2,800 in May. It has now adjusted to $2,510, but it is still +27% per month. People believe in renewal, and the market shows it.
