ETH L2 total throughput reaches a record high: What does Fusaka upgrade and a burn rate of 1.32% mean?

In April 2026, Ethereum Layer 2 networks’ total throughput first surpassed 3,700 operations per second (ops/sec), a growth of over 210% compared to the same period in 2025. This data’s direct driver comes from the Pectra upgrade, which optimizes both data availability and execution layers. Pectra introduces an enhanced version of EIP-4844, increasing the number of Blob data per block from 6 to 12, while also raising the target Gas limit from 15 million to 22.5 million through EIP-7691.

These parameter adjustments nearly doubled the single-batch submission capacity for mainstream L2s like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base. More importantly, the compression algorithm used by L2 sequencers has been uniformly optimized, increasing the average compression rate of transaction call data before submission to L1 from 32% to 47%. The technical improvements are directly reflected in user experience: peak TPS on major L2 networks has stabilized above 1,200, and overall throughput (including cross-chain messages, state updates, etc.) has reached 3,700 ops/sec.

How Pectra Upgrades Compress Mainstream L2 Transaction Fees by 40% to 90%

Fee reduction is the most immediate market feedback from the Pectra upgrade. Based on Gate market data (as of April 15, 2026), the average Gas price on the Ethereum mainnet remains stable between 8–15 Gwei, but the cost of a single transfer on L2 networks has dropped to between $0.002 and $0.008, with swap operations costing about $0.01–$0.03. Compared to pre-upgrade levels, fees on Optimism’s network have decreased by approximately 42%, while ZK-rollup networks have seen reductions of 78%–91%. These changes in fee structure stem from two mechanisms: first, expanding Blob data space reduces competition costs when submitting batches from L2 to L1; second, EIP-7702 smart accounts introduce batch transaction aggregation, allowing users to pay only once for multiple operations (such as approval + swap + staking). For high-frequency DeFi users and on-chain gamers, daily interaction costs have dropped from previous levels of $2–$5 to $0.2–$0.5, directly driving growth in active addresses.

Annual Burn Rate Rises to 1.32%: On-Chain Economic Changes Brought by Fusaka Upgrade

The Fusaka upgrade was deployed in Q1 2026, with its core change extending the EIP-1559 burn mechanism to Blob transactions submitted from L2 to L1. Previously, Blob transactions paid only base fees without participating in burning; after Fusaka, 30% of the base fee in Blob transactions is incorporated into the burn mechanism. This adjustment increased Ethereum’s annualized burn rate from 0.89% before the upgrade to 1.32% (as of April 15, 2026). Based on current ETH prices (around $2,100 USD according to Gate data), the daily value of ETH burned is approximately $3.8 million. The rise in burn rate impacts the network economy in two ways: first, the possibility of net issuance turning negative increases, reinforcing deflationary expectations among long-term holders; second, the operational cost structure of L2s changes—sequencers need to rebalance throughput and burn costs, with some L2s adjusting batch submission frequency to optimize expenses. It’s important to note that the increased burn rate does not necessarily mean higher user costs, as the absolute Blob fee remains far below pre-upgrade calldata fees.

DeFi TVL Grows 26% in Nearly a Year: Which L2 Ecosystems Are Attracting Incremental Funds

As of April 15, 2026, the total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum L2 DeFi ecosystems reached $38.7 billion, a 26% increase from the same period in 2025. This growth rate exceeds the 14% increase in Ethereum mainnet DeFi, indicating capital migration toward L2. In terms of distribution, Arbitrum still accounts for 41% of L2 TVL, but the shares of Base and ZKsync Era have increased from 12% to 18% and from 7% to 13%, respectively, over the past six months. The three main directions for incremental funds are: deployment of real-world asset (RWA) protocols on L2, with quarterly TVL growth of 47%; perpetual contract DEXs benefiting from low fee environments, with daily trading volume reaching $2.2 billion; and liquid restaking protocols, whose L2 deployments offer annualized yields 1.2–1.8 percentage points higher than mainnet versions, attracting about $1.9 billion in net inflows. Notably, as TVL grows, cross-chain bridge liquidity among L2s has increased by 63%, with transfer costs between different L2s dropping below $0.05, further reinforcing L2 as a unified liquidity layer.

How Pectra’s EIP-7702 Smart Accounts Lower Barriers for Ordinary Users

The most perceptible user-facing change in the Pectra upgrade is the standardized support for smart accounts via EIP-7702. This proposal allows external accounts (EOAs) to temporarily gain smart contract execution capabilities without deploying a new contract account. In terms of user experience, this means users can set automatic gas limit adjustment rules to prevent transaction failures due to network fluctuations; support social recovery (requiring 3–5 guardians to jointly authorize key resets); and enable batch authorization and transaction merging. According to Dune Analytics, 90 days after EIP-7702 went live, the number of addresses on L2 networks with enabled smart account functionality reached 1.87 million, accounting for 23% of active addresses. For new users, creating a smart account is almost identical to setting up a traditional EOA, but with significantly improved security and operational convenience. This change directly lowers the psychological barrier for non-technical users to enter the crypto space and has been a key driver behind the 41% growth in active L2 addresses over the past three months.

From Glamsterdam to Hegotá: How Ethereum Plans to Achieve 10,000 TPS

Pectra and Fusaka are short-term scaling solutions. The mid-term goal for Ethereum developers is to surpass 10,000 ops/sec in total throughput during the Hegotá upgrade (expected Q1 2027). The roadmap is divided into three phases: Glamsterdam (Q3 2026) will introduce an initial version of parallel execution, allowing stateless transactions without conflicts to be processed in parallel within the same block, expected to increase L1 Gas throughput by 30%–40%; next, the core Hegotá upgrade will implement state leasing and history expiry, reducing full node storage requirements by over 60%, thus lowering node operation barriers and promoting decentralized sequencers; finally, the goal is to enable native cross-chain interoperability between L2s, eliminating the need for message passing through L1, reducing latency from 10–15 minutes to under 12 seconds. Currently, Glamsterdam testnets are live, and parallel execution in simulated environments has compressed block processing time from 2.1 seconds to 1.3 seconds.

Post-Throughput Breakthrough: Remaining Bottlenecks and Risks for Ethereum L2 Scaling

Despite impressive data, Ethereum L2 scaling still faces three unresolved structural issues. First, the dependency risk of the data availability (DA) layer—over 80% of L2 transaction data relies on Ethereum mainnet Blob space; a surge in Blob demand could cause fees to spike again. Second, sequencer decentralization progress is lagging—most mainstream L2s still use a single sequencer node, posing risks of transaction censorship and MEV extraction. Third, cross-L2 interoperability standards are not yet unified—asset transfers between different L2s require 7–15 minutes for finality, and third-party cross-chain bridge smart contracts carry security risks. On governance, some EIPs in the Pectra upgrade (such as EIP-7623 on call data fee adjustments) have sparked community debates over “L2 overuse of mainnet resources.” The progress in resolving these bottlenecks will directly influence whether Ethereum L2 can reach 10,000 ops/sec in 2027 and whether it might be partially replaced by single-chain solutions like Solana or modular DA schemes like Celestia.

High-Performance L2 Era: Are the Competitive Dynamics of Other Blockchains Changing?

The breakthrough of Ethereum L2 reaching 3,700 ops/sec is reshaping the fundamental logic of blockchain competition. Previously, performance was the core argument for attacking Ethereum’s dominance; now, the overall performance of L2s is approaching or even surpassing the single-chain TPS of competitors like Solana (around 2,500–4,000 actual TPS). The focus of competition is shifting from “how many transactions per second” to “the scale and security of the ecosystem assets.” Currently, Ethereum L2 supports a DeFi TVL that is 4.7 times larger than the second-largest public chain ecosystem, with stablecoin issuance accounting for over 56%. This gap cannot be bridged solely by increasing TPS. Meanwhile, modular chains (such as Celestia + Eclipse) are attempting to offer similar experiences at a lower data availability cost, with data publishing costs about 1/15 of Ethereum’s per GB. However, these solutions still lag in security assumptions (requiring trust in external DA verification sets) and ecosystem maturity. Overall, Ethereum L2’s high performance does not end the competition but elevates the focus to “balancing security and performance” and “migration costs for developers and assets.”

Summary

Ethereum L2 reached a record high of 3,700 ops/sec in April 2026, with Pectra upgrades expanding Blob capacity and EIP-7702 smart accounts reducing transaction fees by 40%–90% and lowering user entry barriers. Fusaka extended the burn mechanism to Blob transactions, raising the annual burn rate to 1.32%. DeFi TVL grew 26% in nearly a year, with clear capital inflows into L2 ecosystems. Glamsterdam and Hegotá upgrades are planned for parallel execution and state leasing, targeting 10,000 ops/sec. However, data availability dependence, sequencer decentralization lag, and cross-L2 interoperability standards remain unresolved bottlenecks. High-performance L2 is reshaping the blockchain competition landscape, but the scale and security advantages of Ethereum’s ecosystem remain its deepest moat.

FAQ

Q: What are the core changes in the Pectra upgrade? Do ordinary users need to take any actions?

The Pectra upgrade mainly includes three core changes: increasing Blob count from 6 to 12, raising the mainnet Gas limit to 22.5M, and standardizing EIP-7702 smart accounts. Ordinary users do not need to take any action; L2 networks will automatically benefit from lower fees. If users want to utilize social recovery or batch transaction features of smart accounts, they can proactively upgrade their accounts in supported L2 wallets.

Q: Does an annual burn rate of 1.32% mean ETH will definitely become deflationary?

Not necessarily. The 1.32% annual burn rate only indicates the proportion of ETH burned via EIP-1559 and Fusaka mechanisms relative to circulating supply. Actual deflation depends on the combined effect of issuance from validator staking rewards. Currently, ETH’s net annual inflation rate is about 0.22% (issuance at 1.54% minus burn at 1.32%). Only if the burn rate remains consistently above 1.54% will the supply decrease in absolute terms.

Q: Since L2 fees are already very low, why continue scaling to 10,000 ops/sec?

Low fees and high throughput address different issues. The current fee reduction mainly results from expanding Blob space, but if active users grow from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions, Blob demand could push fees higher again. The 10,000 ops/sec goal is to support on-chain gaming, decentralized social, high-frequency trading, and other applications requiring thousands of operations per second, while reserving capacity for future 5–10 year user growth.

Q: After Fusaka, have the operational costs for L2 projects increased?

Yes, but within controllable limits. Since Fusaka incorporates 30% of Blob base fees into the burn, about 30% of the daily Blob costs paid by L2 projects are burned and not received by validators. Based on current Blob fee levels, the average daily operational cost for mainstream L2s has increased by approximately 12%–18%. However, because the absolute Blob fee remains far below pre-upgrade calldata fees (by over 90%), most L2s have not adjusted their user charges accordingly.