Layer 2 (L2) scaling solutions like Linea have emerged in response to Ethereum’s scalability needs and Vitalik’s vision of a rollup-centric roadmap for a modular approach to achieving them. With the burgeoning Linea ecosystem – comprising an explosion of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, NFT marketplaces, decentralized applications (dapps), and more – the need for improved scalability and lower gas fees has never been more critical. This is where EIP-4844 comes in.

The Dencun Upgrade went live on Ethereum mainnet today at 10 am ET. The upgrade has been in the making for nearly two years, pointing to the fact that scalability and lower L2 gas fees are top of mind for the Ethereum community. To better tackle network scalability issues, a fundamental shift was required in Ethereum’s data processing mechanisms. This brought about the initiation of EIP-4844, also known as proto-danksharding.

Linea offers transaction fees significantly lower than Ethereum’s: transactions on Linea are up to 35x lower than Ethereum’s. Despite these cost reductions, average users find gas fees challenging, leading them to opt for alternative Layer 1 (L1) blockchains. Let’s learn how EIP-4844 was designed to improve data availability, data storage, and ultimately lower gas fees for users and builders of L2s.

Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-4844, or proto-danksharding, is a precursor to the full danksharding model, an alternative, simpler-scaling strategy part of the Ethereum roadmap.

Designed to provide an intermittent boost to Ethereum’s data bandwidth, EIP-4844 introduces “blobs”  for data storage, which implement the required gas pricing scheme, and even bring in new cryptographic features like KZG commitments necessary to prepare for data availability sampling.

By optimizing data availability through blobs, rollups like Linea will soon reduce the costs of on-chain data storage and increase overall L2 scalability, thereby reducing transaction costs for all Ethereum users. You can read more about EIP-4844 and the mechanics of proto-danksharding here.

EIP-4844 introduces a new transaction format for L2 rollups like Linea called “blobs” - binary large objects of data on Ethereum.

Compared to the existing CALLDATA storage method, a form of persistent storage currently used by L2 chains to store transaction data on L1, blobs are significantly cheaper to use and are pruned from Ethereum’s storage after 18 days.

This means Ethereum can safely process more rollup data and higher transaction volumes on L2 without increasing storage requirements for nodes. Moreover, the cost per transaction can be reduced without compromising user security or introducing new trust assumptions, as EIP-4844 is expected to bring down the costs of storing compressed data on L1.

With its significant fee reductions, EIP-4844 is likely to be a catalyst for the growth of the L2 ecosystem. Lower transaction costs translate into increased accessibility and potentially more user adoption for L2 dapps, enhancing the utility and value of the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole.

EIP-4844 is an important milestone in the journey towards highly scalable Ethereum-based applications.

As Ethereum continues to evolve and mature, technical enhancements like proto-danksharding serve dual purposes: an immediate and tangible improvement to the L2 experience and a stepping stone towards longer-term solutions like full danksharding.

You can learn all about the Dencun fork in the video series by Consensys. Follow Linea on X for updates about when EIP-4844 will be live on the network.