Ethereum’s next major upgrade, Fusaka, is now live on the blockchain’s final testnet, Hoodi, setting the stage for its Dec. 3 mainnet launch that is slated to add several scalability and security improvements to the network.
“Another smooth upgrade, another key milestone on the road to Fusaka,” Nethermind said in a post to X on Tuesday after its widely used validator client completed the fork.
Fusaka will add several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), such as Peer Data Availability Sampling, or PeerDAS, via EIP-7594, enabling validators to read smaller pieces of data on layer 2 networks as opposed to full blobs, boosting node efficiency.
EIP-7825 and EIP-7935 are also included in the update, which aim to raise the gas limit and improve efficiency as Ethereum prepares to unlock parallel execution, the processing of multiple smart contracts at the same time. Other EIPs in the update focus on improving zero-knowledge rollups.
The technical milestone comes amid a major leadership shake-up at the Ethereum Foundation in recent months, with several key contributors departing and criticizing the direction in which the foundation is steering the network.
Meanwhile, Ether (ETH) has hit an all-time high this year on the back of rising inflows into exchange-traded funds and increased corporate treasury adoption of the token.
Fusaka a three-part process
Execution of Fusaka will occur across three stages: first, the actual mainnet launch; second, the EIP implementing the blob capacity increase will be activated; and third, the second blob capacity hard fork will take effect.
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Once Fusaka is implemented, attention will turn to the Glamsterdam upgrade, which is also part of the “Surge” stage of the Ethereum technical roadmap focused on making it more scalable.
Fusaka aims to fine-tune weak point in blockchain trilemma
The upgrade is looking to improve Ethereum’s scalability, one third of the so-called “blockchain trilemma” coined by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin that also includes decentralization and security.
Ethereum was designed to prioritize decentralization and security over scalability and several rival layer 1 blockchains, including Solana and Sui, have focused on scalability to offer faster transactions to compete with Ethereum.
The Fusaka hard fork comes around six months after Ethereum’s last major upgrade, Pectra, which focused on staking performance and wallet features for improved user interface and user experience.
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