Ethereum Blob Base Fee Adjustment: A Balancing ActThe Ethereum Execution Layer Meeting 195 saw a heated discussion around a proposal to adjust the minimum base fee for blobs. This proposal has sparked controversy within the community
Ethereum Blob Base Fee Adjustment: A Balancing Act
The Ethereum Execution Layer Meeting 195 saw a heated discussion around a proposal to adjust the minimum base fee for blobs. This proposal has sparked controversy within the community. Blobs are a new type of data storage introduced in the Cancun upgrade through EIP-4844, designed to store and process data on Ethereum at a lower cost. The current minimum base fee (MIN_BASE_FEE_PER_BLOB_GAS) is 1 wei, and SMG researcher Max Resnick proposed raising this minimum fee to speed up fee adjustments during network congestion.
Raising the Blob Base Fee: Cure or Poison Pill?
The minimum base fee is the minimum fee required to process blob data. Since the implementation of EIP-1559, the Ethereum gas structure has changed, dividing gas fees into a base fee and a tip. The base fee automatically adjusts based on network congestion and is burned, while the tip is paid as a reward to miners.
Max Resnick suggested raising the minimum base fee from 1 wei to 160,217,286 wei. He argues that current blob prices are too slow to increase during the price discovery phase, leading to excessive time needed to reach a reasonable fee level when the network becomes congested. By increasing the minimum base fee, fees can reach appropriate levels faster, ensuring that the Ethereum network can process transactions and blob data more quickly and stably.
Community Opinions: Divided Voices
This proposal has triggered widespread discussion within the community. Ryan Berckmans opposes raising the blob base fee, arguing that Ethereum's current strategy is to attract more users and developers to the network by offering low-cost or even free data availability (DA) during times of low congestion, accumulating network effects. Increasing fees would raise barriers to entry, undermine network neutrality, and the blob market is not yet fully stabilized, making this adjustment premature.
Blockworks' team D believes that raising the minimum fee won't solve Ethereum's current scaling issues and would weaken its competitiveness in data availability services. They advocate for expanding L1 to increase execution fees and make DA services cheaper, enhancing Ethereum's overall competitiveness and attracting more rollups to further expand ETH usage and demand.
Clusters founder foobar also opposes the proposal, arguing that raising fees is too shortsighted, will damage Ethereum's credibility, and could lead to rollups migrating to alternative chains like Celestia.
Nethermind development contributor Bena Adams supports the proposal. Bena points out that 1 wei as the smallest unit is inappropriate when the Ethereum network faces congestion, as the fee growth is too slow to reflect the actual network congestion, failing to regulate network demand effectively.
Ethereum researcher Potuz notes that such controversy due to the excessively small minimum fee unit might not have arisen if the initial fee was set by the Beacon Chain (CL) rather than the Execution Layer (EL).
Can It Really Ease ETH Inflation?
Proponents of raising the minimum blob base fee also argue that it could alleviate ETH's inflation pressure. For example, Cygaar from the Abstract team believes that the current blob price is practically free for rollups, and Ethereum gains little value from the DA cost of L2. A short-term solution is to raise the blob base fee, increasing burning and reducing ETH inflation pressure.
However, ambient founder Doug Colkitt points out that although blob space utilization has reached around 80% on the Ethereum network, it's mainly occupied by low-value spam transactions. These low-value transactions are sensitive to fee changes, and with a slight increase in blob fees, they would quickly decrease or even disappear, ultimately not significantly increasing ETH's burn rate.
When Will ETH Start Deflation?
Aside from blobs, approximately what base fee for Ethereum blocks would trigger ETH deflation? ETH's total supply is unlimited, and under the PoS mechanism, ETH's annual issuance is primarily determined by the amount of ETH staked and the overall activity level of the network. An increase in the amount of staked ETH leads to a corresponding increase in issuance, while the burn mechanism introduced through EIP-1559 partially offsets this increase.
After the implementation of EIP-1559, the annual issuance rate is roughly between 0.5-2%. The target average block size is 15,000,000 gas, and Ethereum's average block time is 12.05 seconds. ETH will start deflation when the amount burned exceeds the annual issuance.
The amount of ETH burned in each block equals the total base fee of all transactions in that block, calculated as: base fee block size (calculated based on the target value of 15,000,000 gas). Annual burn is then: ETH burned per block number of blocks per year (based on an average block time of 12.05 seconds, estimated at approximately 2,620,000 blocks per year).
Assuming an annual ETH issuance of 1%, based on the current supply of 120,330,000 ETH, it amounts to about 1,203,300 ETH. For ETH to achieve deflation, the annual burn must be greater than 1,203,300 ETH. Therefore, we get the following relationship:
base fee 15,000,000 2,620,000 > 1,203,300
Calculation reveals that the base fee needs to be around 30.62 Gwei for ETH to start deflation. Similarly, if the annual ETH issuance is 0.5%, the base fee needs to be around 15.31 Gwei for ETH to achieve deflation. If the annual ETH issuance is 2%, the base fee needs to be around 61.23 Gwei for ETH to achieve deflation.
Conclusion
Raising the minimum blob base fee is a complex issue involving multiple aspects, including increased DA costs, promoting ETH burning, and network competitiveness. The community currently lacks consensus on this proposal, and the final decision on whether and how to raise the minimum base fee requires further discussion within the Ethereum community.
Disclaimer: The content of this article is sourced from the internet. The copyright of the text, images, and other materials belongs to the original author. The platform reprints the materials for the purpose of conveying more information. The content of the article is for reference and learning only, and should not be used for commercial purposes. If it infringes on your legitimate rights and interests, please contact us promptly and we will handle it as soon as possible! We respect copyright and are committed to protecting it. Thank you for sharing.(Email:[email protected])
