How is Ethereum doing since important pectra upgrade

Ethereum received a major update a month ago: the so-called pectra upgrade. The costs for putting data on the network are now almost zero. So good news, especially for people and companies that build on Ethereum. But as always: there is also a downside.

What exactly has changed?

Of Pectra-upgrade introduced something new: Blobs. Those are actually data packages that are temporarily stored on the Ethereum network. By those blobs For so -called rollups, extra layers on top of Ethereum that make transactions faster and cheaper, has become much cheaper to process data.

For the upgrade it cost around 16,000 dollars every day to use blobs. Now? Only a fraction of a cent. Seriously, that saves thousands of euros a day. As a result, networks such as Arbitrum, Optimism and Base (Van Coinbase) can now process thousands of transactions for no dime.

Why is this important?

Ethereum has wanted more scalability for a while: to be able to process more transactions without it becoming slow or expensive. The pectra upgrade helps with this. It paves the way for a future in which you can use crypto quickly, cheaply and safely. Think of buying NFTs, sending crypto or using decentralized apps. It can all be smoother thanks to blobs.

“The almost free blobs are really a breakthrough for Ethereum,” says Ulyana Skladchikova of Blockscout, a platform that provides insight into Blockchains. “Especially for those extra layers on top of Ethereum. They can now work much more efficiently.”

Small parties must adapt

Yet this improvement also ensures new challenges. Because so much more data is now being processed at the same time, nodes (the people and companies that keep Ethereum running) suddenly have much more work. The smaller players in particular notice that. Their computers and storage space are sometimes not powerful enough to keep track of everything.

That’s why we see that now smaller validators join larger parties. This is called validator consolidation. It sounds like centralization, but according to experts it could work out well in the long term. Because the more efficient validators work together, the stronger the network.

Not everything used yet

Striking: although the blobs have become much cheaper, the full potential is not yet used. Since the upgrade, Blob use has risen by around 33 percent, but there is still room for more. That means that Ethereum can grow even more in the future without making it more expensive.

Perhaps you do not use Ethereum yourself actively, but if you invest in crypto it is still useful to follow this. Because cheaper transactions, faster networks and more ease of use make Ethereum more attractive for developers, companies and investors. And that can again influence the Ether course.