A new method called BlobScriptions, used for encoding data on the Ethereum blockchain network, is increasing the price of Blob fees, which are required to include a blob in an Ethereum block. BlobScriptions were introduced on March 27 with a protocol called Ethscriptions, allowing users to write data directly onto blobs, ranging from NFTs to text. It was introduced to the Ethereum network on March 13 as part of the network’s Dencun upgrade.
Notable Step in the Ethereum Ecosystem
According to Ultrasound money’s data, less than five hours after the introduction of BlobScriptions, transaction fees for blobs rose to 585 gwei, which is roughly equivalent to $18. This was a significant increase from the average transaction fee for printing data on a blob before BlobScriptions, which was a fraction of $0.01.
However, since then, Blob fees have significantly dropped from their new peak. At the time of writing, according to Coinbrain conversion data, blob fees are 35.8 gwei, equivalent to $1.20. Meanwhile, according to Dune Analytics data, users have made over 4,500 entries into blobs since the introduction of BlobScriptions.
Tom Lehman, founder of Ethscriptions who uses the pseudonym Middlemarch, drew attention to the rising cost of blobspace in a post written to X on March 27 and called on users to mint BlobScriptions through the official blobscription protocol.
Ethereum and the Dencun Update
In a manner very similar to the early days of Bitcoin Ordinals, Ethereum users are choosing to print small text pieces and seemingly random image varieties onto blobs, and the latest activity on blobscription io shows hundreds of new images added in the last few hours.
Blob data is stored on Ethereum nodes for only 18 days, which means that BlobScriptions data will be removed from the network at the end of this period. However, Lehman added that the Ethscriptions indexer will store the data indefinitely.
Blobs were introduced through EIP-4844, a fundamental data-saving feature of Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade, which primarily focuses on significantly reducing transaction costs on Layer-2 networks. Following the Dencun upgrade, transaction fees on Ethereum Layer-2 networks have dropped significantly, with fees on Arbitrum falling from around $1.25 to under $0.02, and Polygon transaction fees dropping by a similar amount.
As a way to celebrate the reduced transaction fees that came with blobs, an Ethereum developer managed to mint the entire script of the Bee Movie onto an Ethereum blob for less than $13 in ETH transaction fees, just 15 minutes after the upgrade was released.
