EIP 4844 (Proto-Danksharding)

EIP-4844, also known as Proto-Danksharding, is a pivotal Ethereum upgrade that introduces a new transaction type called a blob-carrying transaction. It is designed specifically to improve scalability for Layer 2 (L2) rollups by drastically reducing the cost of data availability on Ethereum.

Rollups already scale Ethereum by executing transactions off-chain and posting compressed data back to Ethereum Layer 1 for security. However, until now, this data has been posted as calldata — a permanent, costly form of storage that competes directly with regular transactions for block space.

EIP-4844 changes this by introducing a new concept: blobs.

What Are Blobs?

Blobs (Binary Large Objects) are large chunks of data that are:

• Attached to special transactions (blob-carrying txs)

• Much cheaper to store than calldata

• Ephemeral, meaning they are deleted from the network after ~2 weeks

• Not accessible to the EVM, so they cannot be read or interacted with by smart contracts directly

These characteristics make blobs ideal for rollups, which only need to publish data for a short time to maintain security and allow fraud or validity proofs to be verified.

How Does It Work?

1. Blob-Carrying Transactions

• A new transaction format includes up to 6 blobs.

• These blobs are posted alongside the transaction, but not included in Ethereum’s permanent state.

2. Data Availability & Verification

• To ensure the data is available (even if pruned later), Ethereum uses KZG polynomial commitments.

• Validators do not need to download full blob data; they only verify KZG commitments and proofs to confirm the data was indeed posted.

3. Fee Market for Blobs

• EIP-4844 introduces a separate fee market for blobs, using a mechanism similar to EIP-1559’s base fee adjustment.

• This ensures blob pricing is decoupled from regular gas fees and can scale independently.

Why It Matters:

1. Lower Costs for Rollups

• Posting blob data is significantly cheaper than calldata — early benchmarks show 5–10x+ cost reduction.

• This leads to cheaper transactions on rollups like Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Scroll, and others.

1. Higher Throughput

• With cheaper data availability, rollups can batch more transactions more frequently, boosting TPS (transactions per second) dramatically.

3. Better UX at Scale

• Lower fees and faster confirmations directly improve end-user experience, especially in high-traffic dApps and gaming, social, and DeFi protocols.

What Comes Next: Toward Full Danksharding

EIP-4844 is a proto implementation — it lays the groundwork for full Danksharding, Ethereum’s long-term sharding roadmap.

Future upgrades will:

• Introduce more blob space per block

• Rely more heavily on data availability sampling and stateless clients

• Decentralize the load by allowing validators to process only parts of the full data

Proto-Danksharding is Ethereum’s way of getting real-world scalability gains today, without waiting years for full sharding to be completed.

Conclusion

EIP-4844 represents a significant evolution in Ethereum’s architecture — not just a patch, but a foundational shift toward modular scalability. By separating execution (L2s) from data availability (blobs), Ethereum strengthens its role as a secure, decentralized base layer, while enabling thousands of transactions per second via rollups.

This upgrade moves Ethereum closer to its vision: a globally accessible, low-cost, high-throughput infrastructure for the next generation of decentralized applications.