What is EIP 4488? EIP 4488 is a solution that will help Layer 2 solutions built on Rollup technology have significantly cheaper transaction fees. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of EIP 4488? Let’s find out together in the article below.
To understand more about EIP 4488, people can refer to some of the articles below:
- What is DankSharding? All About Ethereum’s DankSharding & EIP 4844
- What is Layer 2? Complete Guide to Layer 2 Solutions
- What is Sharding? The Difference Between Sharding & Danksharding
What is EIP 4488?
Ethereum’s current landscape
Overview of EIP 4488
EIP 4488 is an Ethereum improvement proposal. EIP 4488 is called “Transaction calldata gas cost reduction with total calldata limit” focusing on reducing gas fees for storing Call Data on Ethereum for Rollup solutions such as Optimism, Arbitrum, zkSync,… introduced in November 2021 by Vitalik Buterin and Ansgar Dietrichs.
In the EIP 4488 proposal, Buterin and Dietrichs outlined the benefits that EIP 4488 brings without sacrificing network security and decentralization. Some of the benefits that EIP 4488 brings to Rollup solutions are as follows:
- Reduced call data cost from 16 gas/byte to 3 gas/byte.
- Added calldata limit to 1 MB per block.
- Adds 300 bytes per transaction.
By reducing the cost of call data from Layer 2 to Layer 1 from 16 gas/byte to 3 gas/byte, this is expected to reduce the cost of storing Layer 2 data on Layer 1 by about 80%. Data storage accounts for about 30% of total transaction costs on Layer 2, so it is possible that with EIP 4488, transaction fees on Layer 2 will be reduced by about 20 – 25%.
Another advantage of EIP 4488 is that it is relatively easy to implement and will be operational much sooner than Proto-Danksharding.
Note: EIP 4488 does reduce transaction costs and increase transaction speeds on Ethereum.
Disadvantages of EIP 4488
Besides the advantages or benefits that EIP 4488 brings to users, EIP 4488 also has some disadvantages such as:
- EIP 4488 is only a short-term solution and is not considered a long-term solution for Layer 2 Rollup technology.
- Validators will face an increased workload as the volume of call data increases, requiring validators to upgrade hardware. However, there will be subsequent EIPs to overcome this weakness.
- The size of the Ethereum chain will increase faster from 0.1 MB/s to 0.5 MB/s
Besides the short-term advantages and benefits, EIP 4488 also increases “pressure” on validators and the network in terms of hardware.
Summary
It can be seen that EIP 4488 is a great short-term solution while Layer 2 platforms begin to show signs of overload. However, if a more complete EIP such as EIP 4844 is required.
