Ethereum News Today: Ethereum's PeerDAS: Scalability Supercharger to Challenge Solana

Ethereum developers have finalized the December 3, 2025, launch date for the Fusaka upgrade after successfully completing its third and final testnet phase, according to a Decrypt report. The update introduces PeerDAS, a novel data-sampling mechanism designed to reduce layer-2 transaction costs and enhance scalability by expanding blob storage capacity by over 400%, per a Coinotag article. This milestone is being framed as a pivotal step in Ethereum's roadmap to become a global settlement layer for decentralized applications and rollups; the Decrypt report characterized it as a major development.

The Fusaka upgrade builds on the 2024 Dencun upgrade, which introduced temporary blob storage to lower gas fees for layer-2 transactions. By implementing PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling), the network will allow validators to verify data from layer-2 chains without downloading entire datasets, significantly reducing bandwidth requirements, according to a Coinotag report. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called PeerDAS "the key to layer-2 scaling," emphasizing its potential to enable near-zero-cost transactions and support up to 2.4 million daily settlements, a point also noted in Coinotag's coverage.

The upgrade's testnet deployments on Holesky, Sepolia, and Hoodi were completed without major issues, with Hoodi's activation on October 28 confirming readiness for mainnet deployment, as described in a Coinotag update. Developers delayed PeerDAS from the February 2025 Pectra upgrade to allow additional testing, underscoring the network's cautious approach to stability, per Coinotag's reporting. If successful, Fusaka could position Ethereum to rival high-throughput blockchains like Solana, which currently process blocks in under a second compared to Ethereum's 12-second average, according to another Coinotag report.

Market reactions to the upgrade have been mixed. While Ethereum's native token, ETH, has faced recent outflows, with $555 million exiting Ethereum ETFs over two weeks, according to a TradingView report, institutional demand remains strong. SharpLink Gaming, for example, recently added $78.3 million in ETH to its treasury, boosting holdings to over 859,000 ETH valued at $3.62 billion, as reported in a Crypto.News report. Meanwhile, Ethereum's price has rebounded to $4,229, up 7.5% in 24 hours, as bulls target a breakout above $4,250 toward October highs in a Crypto.News piece.

Prediction markets reflect optimism, with 61% of Myriad users expecting ETH to surpass $4,500 rather than fall below $3,100, the Decrypt report noted. However, the token's recent 2.3% weekly decline to $3,760 highlights lingering volatility, also covered by Decrypt. Post-Fusaka, Ethereum's roadmap includes the 2026 Glamsterdam upgrade, which aims to further reduce block times and implement enshrined proposer-builder separation, per Coinotag's earlier reporting.