Base L2s and Optimism Advance in Scalability and Fee Reduction with Dencun Update

The Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) networks, where projects like Optimism, Zora and Base have seen a significant drop in transaction costs. This development is a direct result of the recent implementation of the Dencun update, a milestone that is being celebrated by users and developers in the community.

Jesse Pollak, a key figure at Base L2 incubated by the giant Coinbase, highlighted the change as “dramatic”, to the point where digital wallets need to adjust their systems to show additional decimal places. That’s because transaction fees have dropped to less than a cent, a phenomenon illustrated by Pollak through a screenshot on X, demonstrating that transactions that previously cost $0.31 now cost a mere $0.0005.

after 2 years of hard work, blobs are now live on @base

before: $0.31
after: $0.00 (but actually $0.0005)

wallets need to update to handle these cost reductions! pic.twitter.com/solIX9D4HM

— Jesse Pollak (jesse.xyz) 🛡️ (@jessepollak) March 14, 2024

The excitement about the Dencun update isn’t limited to Pollak. Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, expressed his admiration for the positive impact of this change on Ethereum’s L2s. In a post on

However, an important observation is that not all L2 networks are at the same stage of readiness to fully benefit from the advantages brought by Dencun. Optimism, for example, shared its own achievement of having become one of the most cost-effective L2s, with transaction fees less than a penny, standing out for now.

The essence of the Dencun update lies in the introduction of proto-danksharding. This technique involves dividing large volumes of data into smaller parts, which allows for more agile processing. This efficiency not only speeds up operations, but also reduces operational costs for L2 networks, benefits that are directly passed on to end users.

Understanding the mechanism behind this innovation is crucial. L2 networks optimize processing by batching large amounts of transactions, then sending a summary of those transactions back to the Ethereum mainnet. This means that each transaction on L2 costs just a fraction of what it would be on the mainnet, a significant advance for blockchain scalability.

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