180 Days After EIP-4844: Will Blob Sharing Solve Dilemma for Small Rollups?

TL;DR

Six months after EIP-4844, blob sharing among small rollups significantly reduces data costs and improves data availability, effectively solving their efficiency dilemma through cooperative sharing.

Contribution

This paper provides empirical evidence that blob sharing can substantially lower costs and enhance data availability for small rollups post-EIP-4844.

Findings

Cost reductions exceeding 85% for most rollups with blob sharing.

Blob sharing improves data availability and cost efficiency for small rollups.

Sharing reduces the impact of fixed blob size limitations.

Abstract

The introduction of blobs through EIP-4844 has significantly reduced the Data Availability (DA) costs for rollups on Ethereum. However, due to the fixed size of blobs at 128 KB, rollups with low data throughput face a dilemma: they either use blobs inefficiently or decrease the frequency of DA submissions. Blob sharing, where multiple rollups share a single blob, has been proposed as a solution to this problem. This paper examines the effectiveness of blob sharing based on real-world data collected approximately six months after the implementation of EIP-4844. By simulating cost changes using a simple blob sharing format, we demonstrate that blob sharing can substantially improve the costs and DA service quality for small rollups, effectively resolving their dilemma. Notably, we observed cost reductions in USD exceeding 85% for most of the rollups when they cooperate, attributable to the smoothing effect of the blob base fee achieved through blob sharing.