In March 2024, the Ethereum network experienced a major upgrade with the rollout of EIP-4844, a critical component of the Dencun hardfork, designed to strengthen Ethereum’s role as a data availability layer. This upgrade introduced “blobs” of data, significantly boosting the scalability of Layer 2 solutions by expanding data availability by nearly 100 times. As with every substantial upgrade, assessing its impact and understanding its ramifications is essential for refining our future approach.
To facilitate this assessment, we initiated a dedicated data collection round, encouraging researchers and developers to explore the empirical impacts of EIP-4844. The response was remarkable, with submissions covering a range of topics from consensus layer security to rollup economics. We are excited to announce the winners of this round, whose work provides crucial insights into how this transformative upgrade is altering the Ethereum ecosystem.
Gold 🥇
Seongwan Park – Decipher_SNU: Evaluating the Empirical Effects of EIP-4844
Seongwan’s research presents a thorough empirical examination of the effects of EIP-4844 on consensus security, Ethereum usage patterns, and rollup transaction dynamics. His findings highlight both the advancements and challenges brought by this upgrade, offering essential data to inform future enhancements.
Silver 🥈
Kofi Kufuor: The Impact of EIP-4844 on Rollup Economics
Kofi’s ongoing work on an open-source Dune dataset now includes blob fee data, providing an in-depth view of rollup costs and revenues following EIP-4844. His dashboard streamlines the analysis of rollup economics, making it accessible to a wider audience.
Isaac Samuel : EIP-4844: Advancing Ethereum’s Scaling Future through Blob Transactions
Isaac’s project thoroughly investigates the metrics and implications of blob transactions. His extensive dashboard on Flipside Crypto monitors on-chain metrics and offers detailed analyses through articles, aiding the community in understanding the broader consequences of EIP-4844.
Victoria Tran – Blocknative: Blob Adoption and Utilization – Analysis from the First 85 Days
Blocknative’s submission highlights the early adoption and use of blobs through their innovative Blob Archive API. This tool, along with their Mempool Data Archive, provides unprecedented insights into the data availability landscape of Ethereum after EIP-4844.
Yijing Yuan: Insights on EIP-4844
Yijing’s analysis emphasizes block propagation times, Layer 2 posting patterns, and network stability following the Dencun hardfork. Her timely submission, despite the tight timeframe, delivers critical insights into how EIP-4844 is transforming Ethereum’s data infrastructure.
Bronze 🥉
Evan Kim – Primev: Censorship, Latency, and Preconfirmations in the Blob Market
Evan’s research investigates the forthcoming blob market introduced by EIP-4844, analyzing its parallels to EIP-1559 gas pricing and the potential challenges such as transaction latency and censorship. His work proposes creative solutions, like “preconf bids,” to improve the blob market’s efficiency and dependability.
Guillaume Michel – ProbeLab: A Comprehensive Examination of the P2P Layer in the Dencun Hardfork
Guillaume’s blog article reviews the effects of the Dencun hardfork on Ethereum’s P2P networking layer, concentrating on the public DHT of discv5 and the gossipsub protocol. His research provides essential insights into the network’s performance and potential areas for enhancement.
Leonardo Bautista Gomez(https://x.com/Miga_labs): An Analysis of the First 3 Months of Blobs in Ethereum
Leonardo’s comprehensive study investigates the behavior of blob data during the initial 12 weeks following the Dencun hardfork. His analysis includes the frequency and distribution of blobs per slot, in addition to the challenges and opportunities for future scalability.
Leonardo Bautista Gomez(https://x.com/Miga_labs): Update on Ethereum Hardware Resource Analysis
In a follow-up submission, Leonardo updates a prior study on the hardware resource consumption of Ethereum clients, comparing performance pre- and post-introduction of blobs. His findings are vital for understanding the infrastructure requirements of the network’s latest upgrade.
Evan Kim – Primev: Analysis of Slot Inclusion Rates and Blob Market Combinatorics
Evan’s final submission explores the combinatorial aspects of the blob market, assessing slot inclusion rates, competition, and potential censorship issues. His work sets the stage for optimizing the blob market, ensuring fair and efficient transaction inclusion.
Looking Forward
The insights gathered from this data collection round are crucial as Ethereum continues to advance. EIP-4844 marks a significant step forward in Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap, and the efforts of these researchers will help guarantee that the network remains secure, efficient, and scalable. As the blob market expands, it is nearing a state of congestion, which will undoubtedly yield even more fascinating insights into how Ethereum’s infrastructure adapts to this increased demand. We express our sincere gratitude to all participants for their contributions and look forward to continued collaboration and innovation within the Ethereum community.
Stay tuned for additional updates and future rounds as we keep exploring the frontiers of Ethereum development.
