Vitalik Buterin: Upcoming Fusaka Upgrade Critical for Layer-2 Scalability Breakthrough
Ethereum's scaling revolution gets its biggest boost yet.
The Fusaka upgrade—slated for early 2026—promises to redefine what's possible for Layer-2 networks. Vitalik Buterin calls it 'the missing piece' for mass adoption.
Why Scalability Matters Now
Transaction bottlenecks have plagued Ethereum since DeFi summer. Layer-2 solutions offered temporary relief, but Fusaka represents fundamental infrastructure overhaul. It's not just an upgrade—it's a complete rearchitecture.
The Technical Leap Forward
Fusaka introduces parallel processing capabilities that could increase throughput by 10x. Zero-knowledge proofs get hardware acceleration, while state management undergoes radical simplification. These aren't incremental improvements—they're quantum leaps.
What Changes for Developers
Builders gain access to simplified smart contract deployment and reduced gas costs. The upgrade eliminates entire classes of congestion-related failures. Suddenly, applications that were economically impossible become viable overnight.
Wall Street analysts remain skeptical of course—they're still trying to figure out how to short innovation while maintaining their 2-and-20 fee structures. But in crypto circles, Fusaka represents the moment Layer-2 goes from promising to dominant.
Ethereum network reaches blobs per block record
Late Wednesday, Moulié noted that Ethereum had reached its target of six blobs per block for the first time in history. Blobs, or Binary Large Objects, were introduced to Ethereum through the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 under EIP-4844, also known as proto-danksharding.
According to Moulié, blob usage during the spike was largely driven by activity across several L2 rollups. Base accounted for 42% of blob activity, followed by World with 25%, while other contributors included Arbitrum at 8%, OP Mainnet at 4%, and Soneium and Scroll at 3% each.
5/ current used blobspace %
42% Base
25% World
8% Arbitrum
4% OP Mainnet
3% Soneium
3% Scroll
2% Unichain
2% Shape
2% Lighter
1% Ink pic.twitter.com/J6EWWp0VF7
— hildobby (@hildobby) September 24, 2025
Blobs were developed to reduce transaction costs for Layer-2 networks by providing dedicated storage for compressed data. They may have proven effective before, but per Moulié, forecasting blob usage is difficult due to “inconsistent posting by different chains.”
The Dragon XYZ head of data also mentioned the current requirements for validator storage exceed 70 gigabytes of space for uncompressed blobs, with estimates topping 1,200 gigabytes for unpruned data. Each blob carries compressed information, but compression ratios vary by chain and rarely surpass 25%.
“Each stack has its own compression algo, but generally the more diverse the chain’s usage is, the harder it is to reach higher compression ratios,” he remarked.
According to Moulié, more than 10% of blobs are not fully utilized, originating from smaller rollups that post data regularly before blobs reach their 128-kilobyte limit. He also said around 30% of blocks containing blobs have been affected by miner extractable value (MEV) issues.
Fusaka will allow different nodes to perform tasks for different blocks
EF co-founder Buterin addressed some of the L2 scalability problems, saying that in the initial PeerDAS launch, there will still be cases requiring full data storage.
“In the first version, there are two cases where the full data of a block still needs to exist in one place: initial broadcasting, and reconstruction in case a publisher only provides between 50% and 100% of a block,” he surmised.
He clarified that the protocol requires only a single honest actor to uphold its integrity, even if several others attempt to act dishonestly.
“We only need one honest actor to do them; if there are also 100 dishonest actors, the protocol simply bypasses them. And different nodes can perform this task for different blocks,” Buterin noted.
Fusaka upgrade timeline slated for December
As reported by Cryptopolitan, the Fusaka upgrade, scheduled for December 3, will formally introduce EIP-7594 and double blob capacity from the current target and maximum of six and nine blobs per block.
Ether developers are planning a phased approach like the previous upgrades, with two Blob Parameter Only forks to gradually increase capacity.
The maximum blob count will be increased from nine to fifteen in the first fork, then from sixteen to twenty-one in the second, according to Ethereum researcher Christine Kim. The second fork is scheduled for January.
Although PeerDAS and related methods have been developed for a long time, Buterin warned developers that they are still untested.
Join Bybit now and claim a $50 bonus in minutes
