Pectra's Impact on Ethereum Blob Market Volatility
Following the implementation of Pectra, Ethereum's upgrade via EIP-7691, rollups have seen an increase in daily data capacity. The target and maximum blobs per block were raised to 6 and 9 respectively, increasing the daily capacity from 5.5GB to 8.15GB.
However, despite this increased capacity, demand for blobs remains low, resulting in rollups paying almost nothing for data. In the five full days following the upgrade, an average of 25,600 blobs were purchased daily, a 3.3GB increase from the pre-upgrade average of 21,200 blobs per day.
The median cost per blob object since Pectra went live is $0.00000000035, with total blob object fees paid in the five days following Pectra reaching only $0.0000395. The base rollup has benefited the most from the current market structure, earning $1.22 million in revenue.
Consensus layer nodes are holding an all-time high of 44.6GB of unpruned data due to increased demand for blobs. At the target rate, they must carry between 95GB and 100GB. The increase in blob costs has improved profit margins for rollups, with each observed rollup minimally doubling its revenue.