Ethereum's Blob Fee Myths Exposed
The Ethereum network's Pectra-era has brought about significant changes to gas fees, particularly for blobs. Proponents of the upgrade claim that it has led to a massive surplus of unused capacity, resulting in lower blob costs. However, this narrative is not entirely accurate.
According to recent data, since the Pectra upgrade on May 7, 2025, the network target for blobs per block rose to 6, while the maximum reached 9 per EIP-7691. This increase reduces the scarcity of blob space and increases data availability capacity. Despite this expansion, the average number of blobs per block stays 33% below that new target of 6.
Rollups purchased 25,600 blobs daily in the five full days after Pectra went live, yet this only uses 40% of the available 8.17GB daily capacity. Because demand remains well below the updated target rate, blobs cost rollups almost nothing, with a median cost per blob object since Pectra activation sitting at just $0.00000000035.
The current configuration, where the minimum blob space base fee is set to 1 wei, requires at least 30 minutes of fully saturated blocks for blob space fees to reach $0.01 per blob and begin to influence pricing dynamics. This surplus creates a buffer for rollups like Base, which acts as the biggest beneficiary in terms of absolute net income after on-chain costs.
However, not all is well in the world of blobs. The myth that blobs cost zero fees is false. While blob object fees dropped by nearly 100% following Pectra, Type-3 transactions still require execution layer fees. Rollup submitters must pay mainnet gas fees for execution and priority. On average, a blob pays between $0.50 and $3.00 in execution fees.
In fact, the 60 days leading into the Pectra update saw rollups paying a daily average of $20,660 in total blob-related costs, including both object and execution fees. This compares to a much lower $11,015 daily average after the upgrade. Efficiency varies by how much data a rollup packs into a single transaction.
EIP-7918 aims to fix the instability when demand surges. When the blob base fee stays at 1 wei, the market lacks a proper price signal. During the LayerZero airdrop on June 20, it took six hours for the network to reach equilibrium after a surge in demand. This slow response creates a cold-start problem where the protocol cannot control the equilibrium quantity of blobs consumed.
The new proposal introduces a reserve price to ensure blob fees stay relevant relative to L1 execution costs. Specifically, the function will not subtract target gas from excess gas if the price of a blob falls below the price of BLOB_BASE_COST execution gas. This prevents the base fee from dropping so low that it loses its ability to regulate demand.