The Ethereum network’s main source of income from layer-2 (L2) scaling chains — “blob fees” — has sunk to the lowest weekly levels so far this year, according to data from Etherscan. 

In the week ending March 30, Ethereum earned only 3.18 Ether (ETH) from blob fees, according to Etherscan, or approximately $6,000 US dollars as of April 1. 

This figure marks a 73% drop from the prior week and a more than 95% decline from the week ending March 16, when Ethereum’s income from blob fees exceeded 84 ETH, Etherscan said in an X post. 

Source: Etherscan

Related: Ethereum fees poised for rebound amid L2, blob uptick

Post-Dencun growing pains

In March 2024, Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade migrated L2 transaction data to temporary offchain stores called “blobs.”

The upgrade cut costs for users but also reduced overall fee revenue for Ethereum — initially by as much as 95%, according to data from asset manager VanEck.

“ETH Fees Were Weak Due to Lack of Blob Revenues as L2s Have Not Filled Available Capacity,” Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s head of digital asset research, said in a Nov. 1, 2024, post on the X platform.

Since then, growth in blob fees has been unsteady. Ethereum’s weekly blob fee income peaked at nearly $1 million in November before declining sharply in recent weeks, according to data from Dune Analytics. 

Ethereum’s blob fee income has been uneven. Source: Dune Analytics

Ethereum’s ongoing struggle to earn meaningful income from blob fees underscores concerns about the network’s scaling model, which relies heavily on L2s for transaction throughput.

“Ethereum’s future will revolve around how effectively it serves as a data availability engine for L2s,” arndxt, author of the Threading on the Edge newsletter, said in a March 31 X post. 

According to an X post by Michael Nadeau, founder of The DeFi Report, L2 transaction volumes would need to increase more than 22,000-fold for blob fees to fully offset Ethereum’s peak transaction fee revenues. 

However, Ethereum’s economics are still evolving. For instance, the network’s Pectra Upgrade — which aims to significantly change how Ethereum allocates blob space — is scheduled for this year. 

“The plan is simple: scale Ethereum as much as possible to capture as much marketshare as we can – worry about fee revenue later,” Sassal, founder of The Daily Gwei, said in a March 17 X post. 

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