The cryptocurrency asset management firm Bitwise indicated that Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade, slated for release later on Wednesday, represents a subtle yet vital infrastructure enhancement often overlooked in the moment, but recognized later for bolstering the network’s stability and investability.
This upgrade is advantageous for Ethereum over the long term as it increases capacity, enhances validator efficiency with the growth of rollups, and crucially, enhances the blockchain’s capability to harness value from layer-2 activities, according to analyst Max Shannon.
Fusaka will also elevate the layer-1 gas limit to 60 million per block, a decision expected to enhance throughput and ease fee pressures, anticipated to roughly double capacity over the course of a year, based on Shannon’s evaluation.
From the validator perspective, PeerDAS alleviates the data load necessary for verifying blobs, enabling Ethereum to scale without making node requirements unmanageable, as noted in the report.
The Dencun upgrade for Ethereum, which was launched in March of the previous year, introduced blobs that allow larger data segments to be attached to standard transactions, thereby storing data offchain without causing congestion on the mainnet, unlike call data which remains permanently stored.
The most significant transformation is economic, the analyst explained. Fusaka implements a minimum blob base fee (EIP-7918), resolving a peculiar issue post-Dencun where fees could drop to nearly zero during tranquil periods, which decreased ETH burn and weakened the correlation between actual usage and value generation.
Under the Fusaka upgrade, the blob fee will have a minimum threshold linked to execution fees, roughly calculated as the execution base fee divided by 16, resulting in a more stable revenue and burn flow as stablecoins, decentralized finance (DeFi), and tokenization transition to rollups, according to the analyst.
Bitwise warned that upgrades do not consistently trigger lasting increases in ether prices, as a mild sell-the-news trend is often observed; however, they asserted that Fusaka further solidifies Ethereum’s position as the settlement foundation for on-chain, increasingly institutional finance.
Read more: Ethereum Developers Prep for Fusaka, Second Upgrade of 2025
