When people talk about "Ethereum congestion," they often refer to a past state where network usage was expensive and transaction confirmations were slow. However, this situation has fundamentally changed with Ethereum's continuous upgrades, especially the shift in its scaling strategy. To understand the current state, it's crucial to clarify one concept: the name "Eth 2.0" has been deprecated and is now collectively referred to as Ethereum's upgrade series.
Core Upgrades: From "The Merge" to "Rollup-Centric"
Ethereum's most significant structural transformation, "The Merge," was completed on September 15, 2022. It transitioned the network's consensus mechanism from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). The most direct benefit of this transition is a reduction in Ethereum's energy consumption by approximately 99.95%.
More importantly, The Merge paved the way for subsequent scaling upgrades. Ethereum's core scaling roadmap has clearly become "rollup-centric." This means that a large volume of transaction processing is offloaded to Layer 2 networks (such as Arbitrum, Optimism, etc.), while the Ethereum mainnet (Layer 1) primarily serves as a data availability and security layer.
Key to Solving Congestion: Layer 2 and Mainnet Upgrades
In the past, high-activity applications like DeFi and NFTs indeed caused congestion on the Ethereum mainnet, driving up Gas fees. Today, congestion issues are primarily addressed through the following methods:
- Thriving Layer 2 Ecosystem: Users have migrated a significant number of transactions to Layer 2 networks, which offer lower fees and faster confirmation times.
- Mainnet Upgrades Reduce Costs: The Proto-Danksharding (EIP-4844) upgrade, implemented in March 2024, introduced a more efficient data channel for Layer 2 networks, significantly reducing their cost of publishing data on the Ethereum mainnet. This ultimately translates to a substantial reduction in Layer 2 transaction fees paid by users.
The originally planned "sharding" concept has evolved into "Danksharding." Future upgrades will focus on improving technologies like data availability sampling to provide stronger scaling capabilities for Rollups.
Current Network Status and Data
Thanks to the aforementioned upgrades and ecosystem migration, the Ethereum mainnet is no longer in the highly congested state it once was. According to public data, the average Gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet have recently been at historical lows, network block utilization remains at healthy levels, and the size of the pending transaction queue has significantly decreased. This indicates that most transaction activity has shifted to Layer 2 or other channels.
Future Roadmap Outlook
The Merge was just the starting point of Ethereum's upgrade roadmap. According to core developers' plans, subsequent stages include:
- Surge (Scaling): Continuously improving the network's data processing capacity to support Rollup development.
- Verge (Decentralization): Optimizing the threshold and efficiency for validator participation.
- Purge (Simplification): Streamlining historical data storage to reduce node burden.
- Splurge (Optimization): Addressing various other miscellaneous improvements.
In summary, when users perceive "Ethereum congestion," the solution often lies not in single-point mainnet scaling, but in its thriving Layer 2 ecosystem and the ongoing mainnet upgrades that reduce its costs. Today's Ethereum is steadily evolving into a more efficient and scalable settlement layer, following its clear roadmap.
