Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade hit a major milestone with the successful activation on the Hoodi testnet. This is the third in a series after Holesky and Sepolia. The test ran around 18:53 UTC and simulated the full upgrade including major protocol changes. With all testnets passed, developers are now targeting a December 3 launch on mainnet, though the date still awaits formal confirmation.
What Fusaka brings to the table
Rather than user-facing gimmicks, Fusaka is an infrastructure tune-up. Its headline feature, PeerDAS, via EIP-7594, Which allows validators to check smaller data chunks from Layer-2 rollups instead of full blobs. This will help with reducing bandwidth, saving costs and supporting higher throughput. Other components include increased blob-capacity, i.e. getting more data per block for L2s. We are also likely to see gas and efficiency improvements, with EIP-7935 which was to raise the default gas-limit, being put to action. All these moves will push Ethereum closer to scalable reality.
Fusaka follows the recent Pectra upgrade which focused on staking performance and user features. However, Fusaka is squarely focused on backend scaling and efficiency. The roll put path so far shows that testnets Holesky and Sepolia were completed on October 1st and 14th respectively. Now with testnet Hoodi completed on October 28, developers are gearing up for mainnet target of ~Dec 3.
How will Ethereum and the ecosystem benefit?
For users and developers of Layer-2 networks, Fusaka promises lower transaction fees and more headroom for growth. Node operators can stand to benefit from lighter workloads via PeerDAS. Strategically, it reinforces Ethereum’s scalability push and competitiveness against other chains. The real test, however, will be guaged on how smoothly the transition goes and how well the promised efficiency gains materialise.