Ethereum's PeerDAS Sharding Upgrade Hits Snags on Path to Glamsterdam
The Ethereum network is undergoing significant upgrades to increase its capacity and scalability, thanks to the PeerDAS sharding protocol. This upgrade divides extended blob data into 128 columns, allowing regular nodes to subscribe to only 8 random subnets and download 1/16 of the total data, equivalent to 1/8 of the original data.
The BPO (Bloom Protocol Optimizations) upgrades have increased the target and maximum blob counts without requiring manual client updates. Currently, the network is following a path toward an 8x capacity increase. However, MigaLabs reports that the network fails to reach target blob counts, with high blob counts being rare.
The upgrade also includes EIP-7935, which raises the default gas limit to 60 million and allows for more execution capacity. Additionally, EIP-7825 limits transactions to 16,772,216 gas to prevent denial-of-service attacks. The protocol distributes columns via gossip, allowing nodes to verify data availability without downloading every full blob.
The upgrade also includes native support for the secp256r1 elliptic curve, which allows for biometrics like facial recognition. Furthermore, the network has a 10 MiB block size cap to prevent overload. These changes are leading toward Glamsterdam in mid-2026 and will help lower fees for layer 2 rollups and improve user experience.