Ethereum Eyes Censorship Resistance With Distributed Block Building Vision

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has declared the blockchain trilemma solved following the December 2025 Fusaka upgrade. The protocol is shifting toward distributed block building to prevent builder oligopolies from controlling transaction inclusion. Experts like Mo Dong note that while technically complex, the real challenge is incentive alignment, as distributed building complicates MEV extraction according to analysis.

The Fusaka upgrade integrated PeerDAS, or data availability sampling, into the mainnet, marking the final protocol improvement needed to resolve the trilemma challenge.

The upgrade delivered massive performance gains, with proving times dropping from several minutes to approximately 16 seconds. Furthermore, the network achieved a state where 99% of blocks are now provable in under 10 seconds.

In a recent post on X, Buterin introduced a vision where a full block is never assembled in a single location, aiming to prevent a small oligopoly of block builders from controlling transaction inclusion. While distributed block building is vital for neutrality, critics highlight significant hurdles. Mo Dong, co-founder of Brevis, noted that the primary obstacle is not code, but incentive alignment.

Why the Move Happened

Ethereum is shifting toward distributed block building to prevent builder oligopolies from controlling transaction inclusion. This move aims to enhance censorship resistance by decentralizing the block-building process. Buterin's vision involves ensuring that no single entity can control the inclusion of transactions.

The Fusaka upgrade introduced PeerDAS, a mechanism that allows nodes to verify blob data by checking smaller samples. This change significantly boosted the network's data availability and performance. By reducing proving times and increasing the efficiency of data verification, the upgrade addresses key scalability and security concerns.

How Markets Responded

Ethereum developers have finished the final stage of the Fusaka upgrade, marking another step in the network's steady growth. This update improves how Ethereum handles data and shows that the network can make focused changes without waiting for big, rare upgrades.

The final stage of the Fusaka upgrade activated the second Blob Parameters Only (BPO) update. This update allows developers to change specific settings, like data capacity, without touching the core system. By releasing updates in small batches, Ethereum can keep growing while staying stable and reliable.

What Analysts Are Watching

Mo Dong, co-founder of Brevis, noted that the primary obstacle is not code, but incentive alignment. Because distributed building means no single party sees the full transaction set before finalization, it complicates maximal extractable value (MEV) extraction. The path forward likely combines in-protocol mechanisms like FOCIL with out-of-protocol solutions like distributed builder marketplaces.

The gap in layer 2 interoperability remains a challenge. Despite technical wins, the user experience is still fragmented, and liquidity remains split. Mo Dong believes that zero-knowledge proofs are changing this equation by simplifying cross-chain communication. He estimates that within a few years, users will move assets between major layer 2s without needing to think about bridges.

Ethereum's account abstraction provides guardrails for AI agents transitioning from testnets to processing significant capital on the mainnet. Legal risks are uncharted because current frameworks assume human intent, which breaks down with autonomous agents. Systemic risks are more tractable with programmable guardrails, but enforcement requires verification.

The completion of the final Fusaka upgrade strengthened Ethereum's role as a foundation for scalable blockchain applications and a growing Layer 2 ecosystem. By increasing the number of blobs per block, the network can handle more data without putting too much pressure on it at once.

This strategic doubling of the target capacity is expected to create a more stable, predictable fee market for rollup data. The changes enacted by BPO-2 are backward-compatible and require no action from everyday users or most decentralized application (dApp) developers.

For the average user, the primary benefit will manifest as lower transaction fees. Since Layer 2 rollups bundle thousands of transactions into a single blob posted to Ethereum, their operational costs are dominated by this data posting fee. A reduction in this cost enables rollups to lower the fees they charge their users.

The successful completion of the Ethereum Fusaka upgrade, culminating in the BPO-2 fork, marks a decisive step forward in the blockchain's long-term scalability strategy. By optimizing blob data parameters, the upgrade directly targets the cost structure of Layer 2 rollups, paving the way for more affordable and accessible decentralized applications for millions of users.