Ethereum’s Fulu-Osaka Hard Fork
Ethereum, recognized as the leading platform for smart contracts, has successfully implemented the Fulu-Osaka hard fork, also referred to as Fusaka. As the spotlight shines on the new Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS) optimization, a crucial update known as EIP 7825 addresses transaction gas limitations, which risks being neglected. This update is essential for Ethereum’s scalability, especially in the evolving landscape of zero-knowledge (ZK) technology.
Importance of EIP 7825
According to Michael Dong, co-founder of Brevis, a ZK co-processor, EIP 7825 is pivotal yet often underestimated in its capacity to facilitate massive scaling for Ethereum, potentially achieving a hundredfold increase. The upgrade is designed to prevent a situation known as a “mega-transaction”—when a single transaction uses up all the computational resources in a block. By establishing a gas limit of approximately 16.78 million per transaction, EIP 7825 effectively limits the gas usage per Ethereum transaction to a ceiling of 30 million. This cap is intended to mitigate resource consumption from oversized transactions, which could otherwise lead to latency issues on the network.
Impact on ZK Proving Systems
Dong elaborates that prior to Fusaka’s introduction, larger transactions posed significant risks to ZK proving systems as they could not anticipate how these transactions would impact Ethereum’s processing efficiency. This unpredictability hindered the potential for real-time transaction proving, challenging the ambitions for significant scaling of Ethereum’s capabilities.
Post-Fusaka, with predictable gas consumption for individual transactions, ZK proving systems can now operate more efficiently and reliably. It is estimated that even the most extensive transactions will see a proofing time limited to five seconds, according to Dong. With adequate parallel computing power, ZK systems could regularly process blocks of up to 100-200 million gas, aligning perfectly with Ethereum’s roadmap for real-time transaction proving.
Successful Upgrade and Future Prospects
The Fusaka upgrade, which went live on December 3, 2025, has successfully enhanced Ethereum’s data handling capacity, allowing for an increased number of data blobs per block. Despite encountering a bug in the Prysm client, the upgrade proceeded smoothly without any downtime, underscoring the importance of client diversity in the network’s infrastructure.
