Key Points
Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has put forward a new Ethereum Improvement Protocol (EIP) 7706.
This new proposal focuses on introducing a new gas model for the transaction call data.
Understanding the New Gas Model
Currently, Ethereum-based transactions involve two types of gas fees: one for transaction execution and one for storage.
The execution fee covers the computational effort required to perform a transaction, while the storage fee accounts for the cost of storing data in “blobs”.
Buterin’s EIP 7706 introduces a third form of gas that would be used exclusively for call data.
Call data is a key component of an Ethereum transaction, as it contains the crucial data transmitted to smart contracts.
With this proposal, the Ethereum blockchain would assign a unique charge to data transferred during transactions, which would be separate from the costs of executing contract code or storing data.
The new gas model would also introduce a transaction type that provides max_basefee and priority_fee as a vector, offering values for execution gas, blob gas, and call data gas.
Currently, the base fee adjustment employs different mechanisms for the transaction execution cost and the data storage in the form of blobs.
Buterin, however, has suggested that with the introduction of a third type of gas fee, the Ethereum network should adopt a unified approach for all three types of gas fees.
The proposed change is aimed at reducing the transaction costs associated with transactions that are data-heavy but not necessarily computationally intensive.
If the proposal is accepted, the Ethereum network will be responsible for setting the call data costs independently of other costs.
Buterin recommended managing all three forms of gas via a dynamic model that modifies fees simultaneously.
By implementing a separate gas fee for call data, Buterin suggested that the “theoretical max call data size of a block would be greatly reduced, while basic economic analysis suggests that on average, call data would become considerably cheaper.”
The Ethereum network has been dealing with gas fee issues for years now.
The main motivation for shifting from the proof-of-work mining consensus to a proof-of-stake (PoS) was to become more scalable and less costly.
However, these significant changes have not improved the network’s scalability as promised.
Therefore, these EIPs come in as a timely aid for the network.
