Galaxy: The Current State of Ethereum Blobs and the Blob Market in the Post-Pectra Era

Galaxy: The Current State of Ethereum Blobs and the Blob Market in the Post-Pectra Era
Author: Zack Pokorny, Galaxy Research Analyst; Compiled by: AIMan@Gold Finance
Introduction
On May 7, 2025, Ethereum's Pectra upgrade went live on the mainnet. Among the implemented Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), EIP-7691 increased the target and maximum number of Blobs per block. In last year's Dencun upgrade, EIP-4844 (originally Danksharding) introduced Blobs, providing dedicated data publishing space for Rollups. Since Dencun went live, the Ethereum network has maintained a target number of 3 Blobs per block and a maximum number of Blobs; with a data size of 128kb per Blob, this means that the daily data capacity transferred via Blobs is approximately 5.5GB. After the Pectra upgrade, the target number of Blobs per block and the maximum number of Blobs increased to 6 and 9, respectively, increasing the Blob data capacity to about 8.15GB per day. This change has had implications for the Blob market, Rollups, and Ethereum validators, as it has increased the availability of data capacity through Blobs, reducing the scarcity of the fixed blob space that Rollups compete for. The following discusses the impact of changes to Ethereum's Blob parameters due to the Pectra upgrade on the Blob market, Rollups and their users, Ethereum validators, and the supply of ETH.
Key Points
In the first five full days after the launch of Pectra, the number of blobs purchased daily by rollups increased from about 21,200 to 25,600. Despite the increase, the average number of blobs per block is still 33% lower than the new target (6 blobs per block).
Due to the actual number of Blobs per block being far below the updated target fee rate, Blobs have been nearly free for the first time since mid-April 2025. Since Pectra's launch, the fees paid daily through Rollup have been less than one-thousandth of a cent, with the total cost of Blob objects being only four-thousandths of a cent. This has significantly reduced the amount of ETH consumed to purchase and deploy Rollup data space on Ethereum via Blobs.
Nodes must retain rollup blob data for at least 18 days before they can remove it from their machines. The increase in the number of blobs purchased daily has resulted in a new high of 44.6GB of data that consensus layer nodes must maintain between two pruning events.
The reduction in Blob costs has improved both the relative and absolute profit margins of Rollup, with Base being the biggest beneficiary in terms of net income after deducting on-chain costs. At the same time, since Pectra's launch, the transaction costs for some leading Rollups have remained stable or even slightly increased.
All data used is sourced from Galaxy Research's public dashboard on the Ethereum blob market and its impact on Rollups.
Blob Market
Since Pectra went live on May 7, 2025, the daily number of blobs purchased on the rollup platform has increased by 20.8% compared to before the upgrade. In the 60 days prior to the Pectra upgrade, the rollup platform purchased an average of 21,200 blobs per day. In the five days following the upgrade, they averaged 25,600 blobs purchased per day. This means that the daily data capacity purchased before the upgrade was 2.7 GB, while now it is 3.3 GB.
Despite an increase in the number of blobs purchased, the average daily usage of blobs per block has only been two-thirds of the new target blob limit since Pectra's launch. Thus, while the average number of blobs per block remained at the target rate before the increase in blobs in Pectra, the demand for rollup has not yet reached a level that consistently meets the new target rate.
As a result, since each block has only utilized two-thirds of the blob target, blobs are effectively free. This is the first time blobs have been so cheap since mid-April 2025. Since the launch of Pectra, the median cost per blob object has been only $0.0000000035 (nine zeros). This has led to Rollups paying no more than $0.0000092 (five zeros) daily since the activation of Pectra; in the full five days after Pectra's activation, the total cost paid for blob objects was only $0.0000395. You read that right: since Pectra's launch, Rollups have been paying less than one-thousandth of a cent daily, with the total cost of blob objects being four-thousandths of a cent. Note that this figure does not include the Type 3 transaction costs required to execute blobs on-chain, only the costs of the blob objects themselves.
This means that the fees Rollups pay to Ethereum for blob objects have decreased by nearly 100%—in the 60 days before Pectra, the average daily payment was $16,250 for blobs, totaling $1.095 million.
Data Capacity Usage and Its Impact on Ethereum Nodes
In the post-Pectra era, a larger portion of the total daily data capacity provided by Ethereum through Blobs is going unpurchased. Therefore, although Rollup is purchasing more Blobs from the network to gain more data space, the share of total daily Blob data capacity purchased has been relatively small since Pectra's launch. Once the demand for Rollup reaches the updated target rate, the Blob market will operate more efficiently from a capacity perspective, as the new target rate is only 33% lower than the maximum, compared to 50% under the old parameters.
The updated Blob capacity is 9 blobs per block, with approximately 7,100 Ethereum blocks daily, allowing Ethereum to sell a maximum of about 8.17GB of blob space daily, with a potential sale of 5.45GB calculated based on the target blob number per block. This value will fluctuate with the actual number of blocks daily. However, only 3.3GB of data space has been sold so far—only 40% of the maximum available data capacity per day and only 61% of the target number. In contrast, in the month before the implementation of the Pectra plan, when the target blob number (3 blobs per block) was reached, the average daily sales accounted for 50% of the total capacity and 99% of the target number.
Each Blob object can hold up to 128 kilobytes (KB). Rollup data does not need to occupy the full 128KB of each Blob (for example, each Blob can use 100KB if necessary), but the capacity of a single Blob cannot exceed the 128KB limit. The difference between the purchased Blob capacity (the green line in the chart) and the used Blob capacity (the red line in the chart) highlights how many Blob objects reach the 128KB limit filled with rollup data each day. After upgrading to Pectra, the average occupancy rate of Blobs was 86%, compared to 82% in the 60 days prior to the upgrade.
The increase in the amount of Blob data purchased daily has led to a requirement for consensus layer nodes to carry more Rollup data on their machines. Nodes must keep Rollup Blob data for at least 18 days before they can remove it from their machines (pruning). Before Pectra, this meant that nodes had to continuously carry 40GB to 44GB of data. In the days following Pectra, as Rollups purchased more Blobs, this number has been climbing, and as Rollup saturates the new Blob parameters, this number may continue to increase. As of May 12, 2025, the estimated unpruned Rollup data held by consensus layer nodes reached a historical high of 44.6GB. If the demand for Blobs remains at the current level, consensus layer nodes will have to carry approximately 60GB of Rollup data; at the target rate, they would need to carry around 95GB to 100GB of data.
Rollup Costs and ETH Burning
Since the launch of Pectra, Rollups have been paying an average of $11,015 daily in Blob-related fees, including Blob objects and Type-3 execution layer transaction costs. In comparison, in the 60 days prior to the upgrade, the average daily payment was $20,660, indicating that the total daily cost of purchasing and executing Blobs has decreased by 51%.
The significant rise in Ethereum Layer 1 fees has led to high costs for Rollup activities involving Blobs. In the days following the activation of Pectra, Ethereum Layer 1 base fees surged by over 650% week over week. Without this spike, the fees required for Rollup to execute Blobs would be lower, and the ETH consumed by Rollup Blob activities would also be less.
Since the activation of Pectra, the amount of ETH consumed to deploy Rollup data via Blobs (including ETH used to purchase Blobs and execute them on Ethereum Layer 1 via Type 3 transactions) has significantly decreased. In the 60 days prior to the upgrade, an average of 11.22 ETH was consumed daily, with execution layer fees accounting for only 37.1% of the total daily consumption. Since Pectra's activation, only 3.26 ETH is consumed daily (a decrease of 71%), with 99.99% of the total consumption coming from the base fees of Type 3 execution layer transactions.
Impact on L2
After the launch of Pectra, both the relative and absolute profit margins of Rollups have significantly improved after deducting on-chain costs. Linea and Base have the highest percentage of profit margins after deducting on-chain costs among the observed Rollups, with a seven-day moving average of 98.86% and 98.54%, respectively. Blast has seen the most significant increase in profit margin percentage after deducting on-chain costs, rising from a high of 50% before the launch of Pectra to a low of 60%, now exceeding 80%.
After the launch of Pectra, on-chain costs have risen, but the net gains brought by Rollup have decreased. This is mainly due to the combined effects of lower data costs (as mentioned above) and rising activity and transaction costs. The revenue and net profit after deducting on-chain costs for each rollup platform observed have both roughly doubled, but in absolute terms, Base has been the biggest beneficiary recently. Base's revenue has reached $1.22 million, with a net profit of $1.12 million after deducting on-chain costs.
Conclusion
Rollups have not fully utilized the improvements in Ethereum's data availability brought by the Pectra upgrade. As a result, it has reduced the daily cost owed to Ethereum for DA activities via Blobs. This upgrade has made Rollups financially more favorable for their operations while increasing the daily number of Blobs used. The changes to Ethereum's Blob parameters brought by Pectra also raise critical points regarding node requirements for storing Blob data. As Ethereum begins to scale its Blob DA, this may impact node operators who must meet higher Blob data holding requirements.