Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has expressed on Twitter his reasons for being optimistic in 2023.
Among them, the co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain highlighted The arrival of the rollup-based scalability package, Basic rollup scaling, which was introduced as part of the upcoming The Surge update, in the network roadmap last year. As part of this package is listed the implementation of the EIP-4844 improvement proposal, which will implement the necessary framework to introduce the provisional variant of the Danksharding scalability mechanism, Proto-danksharding, to the network.
Buterin is putting his faith in implementing this upgrade sometime this year., he responded to a question on Twitter by American investor Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of Coinbase and former general partner of Andreessen Horowitz.
Why is Buterin optimistic about EIP-4844?
EIP-4844 is part of Ethereum's path to becoming a more scalable and accessible network.
Currently, although Ethereum has managed to reduce its energy consumption exponentially with the successful implementation of The Merge and its change of consensus mechanism to Proof-of-Stake, it continues to be a blockchain that is not very scalable and its commission rates are quite high, in relation to the solutions offered by its second layer protocols, such as Polygon Network, Optimism and Arbitrum One.
Through EIP-4844, Ethereum aims to improve the organization of data on the network so that it can be handled more simply. Organizing data logistics on Ethereum will allow the network to become more manageable and contribute to lowering its gas fees.
With the EIP-4844, Ethereum will introduce a new type of transaction to the network that includes data blobs. An technical document introduced by Buterin in March, the Ethereum co-founder explained that the type of transaction carrying blobs Proto-danksharding, which will introduce Proto-danksharding to the blockchain network, only requires checking if there are available data blobs that can be downloaded from the network. These types of transactions will not compete with the gas usage of existing transactions, so it represents a significant improvement in scalability. “The data space in these blobs is expected to be used by layer 2 rollup protocols that support high-throughput transactions,” Buterin commented.
Initially, EIP-4844 was intended to be implemented alongside the Shanghai upgrade package. However, in December, the Ethereum development team decided to delay its arrival, giving greater priority to the withdrawals of the ether locked by the validators on the Beacon Chain. The developers' estimates indicate that Shanghai could arrive next March and, with it, the release of the staked ethers.
It may interest you: What will Ethereum's Shanghai upgrade include?
What is The Surge?
The Surge is the next major upgrade awaiting Ethereum and aims to exponentially improve the network's scalability. In the roadmap, the developers indicate that The Surge will increase the number of transactions the network can process every second to 100.000 transactions (TPS) or more.
After The Surge, Ethereum will implement four more upgrades, The Scourge, The Verge, The Purge and The Splurge, aimed at increasing network performance, decentralization, security and resilience.
Continue reading: Vitalik Buterin highlights the most exciting use cases for Ethereum
