After the upgrade in Cancun, how much have the Gas fees on each chain actually decreased?

Written by: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

At 9:55 PM Beijing time last night, the Ethereum Beacon Chain officially reached a slot height of 8626176, which is also the scheduled position for the Dencun upgrade, marking its official activation.

Regarding the content and impact of the Dencun upgrade, Odaily Planet Daily has provided a detailed explanation in a previous article titled "The Cancun Upgrade Has Finally Arrived, Which Assets Will Benefit?" In short, the core content of the Dencun upgrade is EIP-4844, which aims to introduce a new type of transaction called "Blob transactions" to Ethereum. This is achieved by adding an additional temporary data space, Blob, in the blocks on the Ethereum mainnet specifically for processing Layer 2 related transactions, thereby significantly reducing the transaction cost for Layer 2.

So, with the upgrade implemented, how much has the transaction cost for Layer 2 actually decreased?

Next, we will compare the real gas changes of the six major Layer 2 solutions: Arbitrum, Optimism, Starknet, zkSync, Blast, and Base through real testing.

It is important to emphasize that the Dencun upgrade itself will only be executed on the Ethereum mainnet. Therefore, for Layer 2 to achieve cost reduction, they need to actively upgrade to accommodate the new "Blob transactions." Different Layer 2 solutions have varying timelines for adapting to the upgrade, and currently, some Layer 2 fees have not shown significant changes, so users will need to continue waiting.

As shown in the image above, with some Layer 2 solutions having completed their adaptation to "Blob transactions," the gas fees on their respective networks have seen a noticeable decline.

Additionally, compared to ZK Rollup, the fee reduction for Optimistic Rollup after adaptation seems to be more pronounced, with Optimism, Base, and others almost reaching negligible levels—just think, you can now make 100 transactions for 1 dollar…

Currently, Arbitrum still has the smallest reduction in gas fees among Layer 2 networks, but given that the team has stated they will further reduce fees after the ArbOS Atlas upgrade on March 18, we hope users will continue to be patient.

Finally, I want to discuss the gas changes on the Ethereum mainnet. Many people have a major misconception about the Dencun upgrade—that it will also reduce gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet. This statement clearly reflects a misunderstanding, but it is not entirely without merit.

From the direct logic of the Dencun upgrade (mainly EIP-4844), the core purpose of the upgrade is to utilize the new Blob data space to reduce the costs of Layer 2 synchronizing data to Layer 1 (the Ethereum mainnet), thereby lowering Layer 2 transaction fees, which does not have a direct correlation with the gas situation on the Ethereum mainnet.

However, indirectly, as the block space previously occupied by Layer 2 related transactions is released (actually transferred from calldate to Blob), the competitive pressure on fees faced by other Ethereum mainnet transactions will also ease. Therefore, the Dencun upgrade will also reduce the transaction cost on the Ethereum mainnet to some extent.

Nonetheless, since the share of Layer 2 related transactions in the total transaction volume on the Ethereum mainnet is relatively limited, the aforementioned changes will not have a very noticeable impact on gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet.

Overall, Layer 2 remains the biggest beneficiary of the Dencun upgrade. With a significant reduction in on-chain gas fees, Layer 2's influence on projects with "high concurrency requirements" and "low unit value" attributes, such as gaming and social applications, will greatly increase. Whether this will spark a new wave of application growth for Layer 2 will be a key focus for us in the next phase.