Did Ethereum Just Fix its Scalability Problem?

Analyzing how Ethereum's latest upgrades address long-standing scalability challenges.

The Scalability Challenge

Ethereum has long struggled with transaction throughput limitations and high gas fees. In 2023, average fees exceeded $50 during network congestion, making small transactions economically unfeasible. 

// Legacy gas calculation
totalCost = gasLimit * gasPrice (GWEI)
highVolitility => Price = f(blockSpaceDemand)

The New Consensus Solution

The Merge (EIP-4844) transition to Proof-of-Stake has enabled:

  • Dynamic block size adjustments via EIP-1559
  • Sharding architecture reducing data availability costs
  • 155,000 TPS → 10x capacity through rollups (optimistic + ZK)
  • Gas fee volatility decreased by 70% post-merge
Ethereum Scalability Graph

Layer 2 Innovations

While core upgrades improve base layer capacity, developers have focused on L2 solutions:

Optimistic Rollups

Finality in ~1 hour | 45-70% cost reduction | Arbitrum AnyTrust

ZK-SNARK Rollups

450 TPS finality | Validium verification | StarkWare implementations

*Source: 2025 Ethereum Foundation Whitepaper Vol. 3*

The Unfinished Chapter

While these improvements represent progress, fundamental challenges remain:

Theoretical max scaling = 100,000 TPS
Actual sustained throughput ≈ 45,000 TPS

Data sharding requires
97% validator uptime

Finality time remains suboptimal (7 min) vs Solana's 1.8s.

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