Ethereum Fusaka Hard Fork Goes Live Today: 8x L2 Scalability Unlocked with PeerDAS

Ethereum successfully activated the Fusaka hard fork — the network’s first major upgrade since Pectra in March 2025 — introducing PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling) and a suite of performance enhancements that dramatically boost Layer 2 scalability without sacrificing decentralization.

While the upgrade is largely under-the-hood infrastructure work, the activation of PeerDAS theoretically enables Ethereum rollups to scale up to 8× higher throughput while allowing full nodes to store only ~12.5% (one-eighth) of blob data, marking one of the most significant data-availability improvements since EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding) went live in 2024.

What Fusaka Actually Changes (Key EIPs)

• EIP-7702 & PeerDAS (core of Fusaka) Nodes now sample only small portions of blob data from peers instead of downloading everything, reducing bandwidth and storage requirements by roughly 87%. This keeps running a full node viable even as L2s push toward 100–200 MB/s of aggregated throughput.
• EIP-7691 Blob fee market fixes Corrects overcharging bugs in blob gas pricing, making data posting cheaper and more predictable for rollups.
• EIP-2537 MODEXP precompile adjustment Lowers gas cost for certain cryptographic operations used by zk-rollups.
• Transaction-level gas caps Prevents malicious or buggy contracts from monopolizing block space during congestion.

The upgrade is named “Fusaka” by combining the execution-layer portion (Osaka) and the consensus-layer portion (Fulu), reflecting contributions from both client teams.

Will Fusaka Trigger a Pectra-Style Price Rally?

Market reaction has been muted so far — ETH is trading +1.4% at ≈$2,860 in the hours after activation — a far cry from the 35% surge seen in the two weeks following Pectra.

Analysts attribute the subdued response to three factors:

1. Expectation already priced in — Fusaka has been telegraphed since Devcon SEA in November 2024.
2. Purely infrastructural — Unlike Pectra, which delivered immediate staking UX improvements and higher blob counts, Fusaka’s benefits accrue gradually as L2s upgrade their sequencers and data pipelines.
3. Macro headwinds — The Japan bond shock earlier this week still dominates risk sentiment.

That said, long-term bulls argue the market is underestimating the compounding effect:

• Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base have already signaled PeerDAS integration roadmaps for Q1 2026.
• L2 fee revenue (currently ~$1.8M/day) is expected to rise exponentially as cheaper data posting enables consumer-grade apps (gaming, social, perpetuals) to go fully on-chain.

What to Watch in the Coming Weeks

• Blob utilization rates — currently averaging 38% of the 6-blob target — expected to climb steadily toward 80–90% as L2s consume the new capacity.
• Full-node count stability — a key decentralization metric that PeerDAS is designed to protect.
• L2 TVL and transaction growth — Base and Arbitrum are forecasting 3–5× transaction increases by mid-2026.

In summary, Fusaka is a “silent giant” upgrade: no flashy user features, no immediate staking changes, but a foundational leap that keeps Ethereum competitive against high-performance L1s while preserving decentralization. The price fireworks may not come today or tomorrow, but the infrastructure laid down on December 3, 2025, is widely expected to power the next leg of the Ethereum L2 supercycle in 2026 and beyond.