Fusaka isn’t just another routine Ethereum upgrade. It marks a shift in tempo, attitude, and ambition. For years, Ethereum moved at a slow but steady pace, delivering one major network upgrade annually. Now the chain is shifting gears. With Fusaka’s rollout, Ethereum is formally stepping into a twice-a-year hard-fork rhythm, and the impact of that change goes far beyond technical housekeeping. It signals a maturing ecosystem that wants to scale faster, offer better UX, and meet the increasing demands of a global onchain economy.
Why Fusaka Matters Right Now
Fusaka went live on mainnet at epoch 411392, around 21:50 UTC on Wednesday, becoming Ethereum’s seventeenth major upgrade. That alone is noteworthy given that Pectra shipped only seven months ago. More importantly, this upgrade proves the Ethereum Foundation, despite its leadership transitions this year, can actually deliver on a faster cadence.
Until now, Ethereum stuck to a near-annual schedule following the Merge in 2022. Shapella hit in April 2023. Dencun followed in March 2024. Pectra arrived in May 2025. Fusaka breaks that pattern. And according to Consensys, this twice-a-year schedule is the new normal.
Fusaka also stands out because of its sheer size. The release includes nine core EIPs plus four supporting proposals, making it one of the most comprehensive upgrades ever pushed to mainnet.
What PeerDAS Changes About Ethereum
The biggest headline here is PeerDAS, short for Peer Data Availability Sampling. This is the most significant shift to Ethereum’s data model since blobs were introduced in Dencun back in 2024.
PeerDAS lets validators sample sections of blob data instead of downloading entire blobs. That sounds subtle, but it rewires how data availability works.
What this really means is simpler: Layer 2 rollups get a massive efficiency boost. More blob throughput becomes possible without overloading individual nodes. As storage requirements scale, L2 fees can fall. Ethereum stays secure at L1, and rollups get room to breathe.
Fusaka pairs PeerDAS with the new Blob Parameter Only mechanism, which will steadily increase blob throughput over the coming weeks. Targets will rise to 14 blobs per block, with a maximum of 21 by early January. Engineers expect this to expand capacity by as much as eight-times.
Fusaka also introduces a blob base fee minimum to counter problems seen after Dencun, where fees collapsed to near zero in quiet periods. When L2 activity rises, a proportional fee system kicks in, helping stabilize the economics of rollups and creating more predictable fee burns for ETH.
The Quiet but Important Backend Improvements
Not every upgrade needs flashy user-facing features. Fusaka leans heavily into cleaning up under-the-hood mechanics that keep the chain resilient and usable at scale.
One change raises Ethereum’s gas limit cap rules to prevent a single transaction from hogging excessive block space. This helps mitigate denial-of-service risks and keeps block production stable.
Another major step is native support for the secp256r1 elliptic curve. This paves the way for device-level signing and passkey functionality, expanding Ethereum’s compatibility with modern hardware security ecosystems.
Developers also added the Count Leading Zeros Opcode via EIP-7939. This obscure-sounding tweak helps improve performance for zero-knowledge systems and offers potential defensive advantages against future quantum-computing risks. It’s not the kind of thing users notice in a wallet, but it’s essential groundwork for Ethereum’s long-term survival.
Setting the Stage for Faster, Bigger Upgrades
Fusaka signals a philosophical shift: Ethereum doesn’t want to move cautiously anymore. It wants to move confidently.
The upgrade may not include the large-scale UX shifts or staking revisions seen in Pectra, but its backend enhancements unlock scaling gains unseen since the Merge in 2022. This is the infrastructure work that future features will stand on.
Researchers are already mapping out Glamsterdam, the next major upgrade expected in 2026. If Fusaka is any indication, the pipeline ahead will be more aggressive, more iterative, and designed to keep Ethereum competitive in a world where L2 ecosystems grow faster than ever. Ethereum isn’t just evolving. It’s accelerating. Fusaka is the first real proof.