Ethereum Surge Upgrade: How Ethereum Breaks Through the Million-Level TPS Bottleneck

Ethereum is undergoing a massive technological revolution. As the backbone of the blockchain ecosystem, the ETH network faces a long-standing challenge: transaction congestion and high Gas fees under high concurrency scenarios. The Ethereum Surge upgrade is specifically designed to thoroughly solve this problem.

What is the ultimate goal of this upgrade phase? To increase Ethereum’s transaction processing capacity from the current 15-30 TPS (transactions per second) to over 100,000 TPS—that is, the network’s capacity could multiply dozens of times. This is not only a technical breakthrough but also a critical step in determining whether blockchain can support truly global applications.

Why does Ethereum need the Surge upgrade?

The current problem is straightforward: Ethereum is congested.

Layer 1 currently can only handle 15-30 transactions per second. During market peaks, this throughput is far from enough. The result? Gas fees skyrocket, and the cost for ordinary users to transfer funds can range from dozens to hundreds of dollars. User experience in DeFi, NFTs, on-chain gaming, and other applications is severely impacted.

Ethereum Surge’s mission is: To fundamentally solve scalability issues through technological innovation without sacrificing decentralization and security.

According to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s plan, the Surge upgrade revolves around three core pillars:

1. Large-scale application of Layer 2 rollup solutions — Moving many transactions off-chain and aggregating them on-chain
2. Data Availability Sampling (DAS) — Making validation more efficient, without requiring every node to store all data
3. Continuous optimization of the Layer 1 base layer — Enhancing the processing capacity of the first layer itself

How to achieve millions of TPS? Key technical breakdown

Layer 2 Rollup: The main force of scalability

Imagine a scenario: a highway often gets congested. The solution isn’t to turn the highway into ten roads but to build express lanes and detours, dispersing some traffic to the second layer. Layer 2 rollup is this “express lane”.

How rollups work:

• Pack thousands of transactions off-chain
• Only upload proofs of the final state to the Ethereum mainnet
• This can reduce Gas fees by over 90%

Current mainstream rollup solutions include Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, etc. According to L2Beat data, the total value locked (TVL) in these Layer 2 networks has surged by 216% over the past year, exceeding $38 billion. This indicates a large-scale migration of users to the second layer.

Rollups are divided into two types:

Optimistic Rollups
These assume all transactions are valid. Unless someone disputes within a challenge period, transactions are considered confirmed. Optimism and Arbitrum follow this approach. Advantages are speed and low cost; disadvantages include the need to wait for the challenge period for final confirmation.

ZK-Rollups (Zero-Knowledge Rollups)
These use cryptographic proofs (SNARKs) to directly verify transaction validity without waiting periods. zkSync is on this path. Advantages include fast finality and high security; disadvantages are technical complexity and high computational costs.

Data Availability Sampling (DAS): The key to efficient validation

A critical question: How can blockchain ensure data availability without requiring every node to store all data?

DAS is the answer. It allows nodes to randomly sample and verify data blocks without downloading the entire block. This ensures security (since enough random sampling makes collusion difficult) and significantly reduces node operation costs.

DAS has two main implementation approaches:

PeerDAS
Distributes data verification load via peer-to-peer networks, with each node verifying only part of the data.

2D DAS
Builds on PeerDAS, further verifying the relationships between data blocks to enhance overall security.

Both technologies are assigned key roles in Ethereum Surge’s development roadmap.

Compression techniques and Plasma solutions

Besides rollups and DAS, Ethereum is exploring other scalability ideas.

Plasma is a relatively early solution that is gaining renewed attention. Its idea is: record only transaction summaries and verification info on the main chain, while storing large amounts of transaction data off-chain. Using ZK-SNARK cryptographic proofs, the integrity of off-chain data can be guaranteed.

Data compression approaches aim to reduce data size from another angle—using methods like BLS signatures to aggregate multiple signatures into one, significantly saving space.

Ethereum Surge timeline: from 2024 to 2026+

Phase 1: Q1 2024 - Dencun upgrade and Proto-Danksharding

Focus: Launch of EIP-4844

This upgrade introduces the “blobs” mechanism—a data type optimized for Layer 2. Blobs have low-cost storage but are only retained temporarily before automatic deletion. This greatly reduces Layer 2 costs.

Data shows: After deploying Dencun, average transaction fees on Arbitrum and Optimism were cut in half, dropping from a few cents to a few mils.

Phase 2: 2024-2025 - Explosion of rollup ecosystem

In this phase, major players (Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, etc.) will roll out successive optimizations:

• More efficient proof generation algorithms
• Improvements in cross-layer bridging
• Gradual deployment of DAS systems

The true power of the ETH upgrade begins to manifest—users will feel continued fee reductions and significant speed improvements.

Phase 3: End of 2025 - Deep optimization of Layer 1

Key updates include:

EOF (Ethereum Object Format)
A new bytecode format that improves EVM execution efficiency by 10-30%, reducing Gas consumption accordingly.

Multi-dimensional Gas Pricing
Breaking down Gas fees into three dimensions—compute, data, storage—allowing users to pay as needed, avoiding waste on unrelated resources.

Native Rollup Integration
Embedding rollup logic directly into the Ethereum protocol layer, enabling seamless coordination between second and first layers.

Phase 4: 2026 and beyond - Full Danksharding

Upgrading from Proto-Danksharding to full Danksharding, Ethereum will be divided into multiple shards, each processing transactions in parallel, achieving true horizontal scalability.

Subsequent updates include The Splurge (performance optimizations), The Verge (consensus mechanism improvements), The Purge (network cleanup), with the ultimate goal of building a blockchain capable of supporting global-scale applications.

How Ethereum Surge will change user and developer experiences

Impact on ordinary users

1. Significantly lower costs

The most direct benefit. On Layer 2, a transfer of ETH that used to cost a few dollars now costs just a few cents. Interacting with DeFi, buying NFTs—activities previously avoided due to high Gas fees—are now economically feasible.

2. Speed improvements

Transaction confirmation times drop from over ten seconds to 1-2 seconds or less. For high-frequency trading and on-chain gaming, this is a revolutionary improvement.

3. Unified cross-layer experience

The future goal is for Layer 1 and Layer 2 to feel like a single network. Transferring assets between layers will be as simple as transferring within the same wallet. Users no longer need to worry about which layer their funds are on or how to move them.

Impact on developers

More room for innovation

DeFi, gaming, social applications developers can build more complex, high-frequency logic without constantly optimizing for Gas. This will stimulate innovation across the ecosystem.

Redesign of economic models

Many existing projects will reevaluate their incentive mechanisms. Lower Gas costs mean that many business models that were unviable at high fees now have room to survive.

Technical risks and security considerations

Security challenges

Rollups rely on cryptographic proofs to ensure security. If the proof system is compromised, user funds could be at risk. This is why ZK-Rollups, though more complex, are often considered more secure.

Long-term threats: Quantum computing

Vitalik Buterin has publicly stated that quantum computing poses a long-term threat to Ethereum. Post-quantum cryptography research is already on the agenda, and Ethereum is preparing for challenges decades down the line.

Instability during transition

During upgrades, network parameters will be continuously adjusted. Short-term effects may include fee fluctuations and liquidity dispersion. Developers and users should be prepared psychologically.

Summary: The strategic significance of Ethereum ETH upgrade

Ethereum Surge is not just a performance upgrade but a strategic choice for Ethereum’s global adoption.

Through a combination of Layer 2 rollups, data sampling, and protocol layer optimizations, Ethereum is breaking the “Impossible Trinity”—balancing decentralization, security, and scalability. The goal is to enable Ethereum to support global applications, expanding from millions to billions of users.

This process will be lengthy. Starting in 2024, with full Danksharding in 2026, and ongoing optimizations, it will take three to five years of steady progress. Each step is laying the foundation for the final vision.

For crypto participants, understanding the significance of the Surge upgrade means recognizing that: Improvements in underlying infrastructure directly impact the prosperity of the ecosystem. Cheaper, faster transactions enable more innovative projects to survive and more users to participate on-chain. From this perspective, Ethereum Surge is laying the groundwork for the next bull market.