Ethereum Combines Rollups, Blobs for Gradual Scaling
Ethereum is addressing its blockchain engineering challenge of increasing activity without significantly raising hardware and bandwidth requirements. This issue would make it difficult for independent users to operate nodes. The solution involves combining Layer 2 rollups, blobs, data-availability sampling, and measured increases in Layer 1 capacity.
Rollups move transaction execution away from the mainnet by processing them separately and publishing compressed data and commitments to Ethereum. This allows the mainnet to focus on settlement, security, and data availability.
The Dencun upgrade introduced EIP-4844 in March 2024, enabling temporary data objects called blobs for rollups. Each blob carries up to 128 KB of data, providing a more efficient alternative to conventional calldata.