This increase was triggered by the Ethereum layer-2 network Scroll distributing its governance token SCR via airdrop to its users. This marks the third time that blob fees have risen this much since Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade in March 2024.

Scroll airdrop requests stimulated the blob market on the Ethereum network, and crypto data analyst Hildobby shared this on the X platform on October 22, stating that blobs are no longer free.

Hildobby particularly emphasized that this increase was due to the airdrop of Ethereum L2 Scroll. Blob fees hit a four-month high of $4.52, according to Dune Analytics data.

This kind of increase in Blob prices has only been observed twice before: first, during the surge in L2 activity in July, and again with the launch of Blobscriptions on March 27.

Blobscriptions is known as a protocol that allows users to save data directly into blobs. Such activities increase the data load on the Ethereum network, causing blob fees to rise.

Rising blob fees are creating a complicated situation for the Ethereum network. More expensive blobs incur more blob gas fees on the network, increasing transaction costs. This situation affects transaction and transfer costs especially in Ethereum layer-2 (L2) networks.

However, as transaction volume on Ethereum L2s decreased, blob fees dropped rapidly, returning to almost zero at the time of publication.

These developments bring to mind a warning made by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on the X platform on September 27.

Buterin stated that the “blob count,” that is, the maximum number of blobs available per block, is approaching its capacity, which may limit Ethereum’s scalability. If no action is taken in this regard, the Ethereum network may have difficulty processing large-scale transactions.

A few weeks later, on October 18, Ethereum developers submitted a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) aimed at increasing the number of available blobs.

Galaxy Digital’s vice president of research, Christine Kim, explained that this proposal is EIP-7742, and this proposal will create a mechanism for Ethereum’s consensus layer to dynamically adjust blob gas target and maximum values.

In this way, transactions carrying blobs will be optimized and the scalability of the Ethereum network will increase. Blobs was introduced with the Dencun upgrade in March, and this development was aimed at reducing transaction costs, especially on Ethereum layer-2 networks.

With the introduction of Blobs and proto-danksharding, transaction fees on Ethereum layer-2 networks had dropped significantly. For example, swap fees on Arbitrum dropped from $1.25 to less than $0.02.

There was a similar decline on the Polygon network. These developments reveal how effective blobs are as temporary data storage units that reduce transaction costs on the Ethereum network.

Remarkably, Ethereum developer Dan Cline posted the entire Bee Movie scenario on the Ethereum mainnet for just $14. This was an interesting example of how blobs offer low-cost data storage solutions.

Blobs make it possible to store more data on the Ethereum network, while also providing huge savings in transaction costs.