His remarks arrive as Ethereum records six blobs per block, a milestone that has intensified concerns about data bloat across the ecosystem.
Blobs were introduced through EIP-4844 as temporary on-chain data containers, designed to lower costs for Layer-2 rollups while avoiding permanent storage pressure. Unlike call data, blobs expire after about two weeks, reducing long-term storage needs while preserving integrity for transaction verification.
This structure makes rollups cheaper to operate and enhances Ethereum’s scalability.
Considering this, the analyst pointed out that validators now require more than 70 gigabytes of space to manage blobs, warning that this figure could balloon to over 1.2 terabytes if left unpruned.
This sharp increase has forced developers to look for solutions that balance scalability with storage efficiency.
According to him:
“The way PeerDAS works is that each node only asks for a small number of “chunks”, as a way of probabilistically verifying that more than 50% of chunks are available. If more than 50% of chunks are available, then the node theoretically can download those chunks, and use erasure coding to recover the rest.”
However, he noted that the system still requires complete block data at certain stages, such as during the initial broadcast or if a block must be rebuilt from partial data.
To guard against manipulation, Buterin stressed the importance of “honest actors” who fulfill these roles. He emphasized, however, that PeerDAS is resilient even against large groups of dishonest participants, as other nodes can assume responsibilities when needed.
Buterin pointed out that Ethereum’s core developers remain cautious about deploying PeerDAS despite their years of research on the project.
In his view, PeerDAS will be vital for sustaining layer-2 growth and preparing Ethereum’s base layer to handle higher gas limits and eventually migrate execution data entirely into blobs.
