With Layer-2 Scaling Solutions Doing a Decent Job, Vitalik Eyes Are Still Fixed on '5 Cent Transaction Cost'

^(Source)

Evening

So with Ethereum continuing to suffer congestion issues resulting in exuberantly high transaction fees, several layer-2 solutions have been deployed to address the issue. Layer-2 solutions help scale Ethereum network by off-loading transactions from the main chain and processing them on a side chain with same level of security and decentralization.

With Layer-2 solutions doing a pretty decent job in scaling Ethereum and offering considerably lower transaction cost in comparison to main Ethereum network, Vitalik Buterin, the cofounder of Ethereum, isn't satisfied at all. Buterin is of the view that for a solution to be truly acceptable it needs to offer gas fess under 5 cents.

"Needs to get under $0.05 to be truly acceptable [in my opinion]. But we’re definitely making great progress, and even proto-danksharding may be enough to get us there for a while!"

Buterin statement came in response to tweet from the “Bankless” podcast host Ryan Sean Adams. Adams tweeted comparative transaction cost data of eight Ethereum layer-2 solutions. The data was pulled from L2fees.info, a cite that compares the transaction cost of main Ethereum network and different scaling solutions.

Ethereum main network transition cost is pretty low around $3, but during the recent Yuga Lab’s Land minting the network congesting skyrocketed the gas fees to whooping $14,000 per mint.

The only network that met Buterin's desired transaction cost was Metis Network with $0.02 Ethereum transaction cost and $0.15 token swap fees. Whereas Arbitrum has the highest transactions cost among all scaling solutions, $0.85 for Ethereum sending and $1.19 for token swiping.

Buterin desired 'under 5 cents' transaction cost is a long held goal, as he stated back in 2017 that internet of money should not cost more than 5 cents. He reiterated the same goal in a long twitter thread published in January this year.

Buterin also pointed towards proto-danksharding as a short term soliton for bringing scalability to Ethereum and push transaction cost below the desired threshold. Proto-danksharding is a recently proposed Ethereum Improvement Proposal(EIP-4844), that will introduce a new type new type of transaction called "blob-carrying transaction”. Blob-carrying transaction will be able to carry extra 125kb of data that can't be accessed by Ethereum Virtual Machine(EVM), thereby scaling the network by reducing congestion and decrease competition for gas usage.

The shard chain upgrade is expected to go live in 2023, way after the expected shift to Ethereum 2.0. This will help Ethereum expand horizontally by improving network's ability to store data, and both the Ethereum main network and layer-2 scaling solutions will benefit form it.

Buterin's eyes still fixed on 5 cent transaction cost is kind of reassuring, that best minds on planet are tirelessly working to make Ethereum network more scalable and cost effective.