Ethereum’s Merge & Beyond: The Role of EIP-4488 & Other Scalability Upgrades

The Ethereum Merge was a historic upgrade that transitioned the network from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), drastically reducing energy consumption and laying the groundwork for future scalability improvements. Beyond the Merge, several key proposals and upgrades—such as Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-4488—play a critical role in enhancing the network’s performance and capacity.
## The Ethereum Merge: A Foundational Shift
The Merge, completed in September 2022, marked Ethereum’s transition to a more sustainable and energy-efficient consensus mechanism. By eliminating energy-intensive mining, Ethereum slashed its carbon footprint by roughly 99.9%. However, the Merge did not immediately solve Ethereum’s scalability issues—transaction speeds and fees still posed challenges, especially under high network congestion.
## EIP-4488: A Temporary Scalability Boost
EIP-4488, proposed by Micah Zoltu, was briefly considered as a short-term scalability solution. The proposal suggested reducing gas costs for(“However, EIP-4488 had limitations. Critics argued that reducing calldata costs could incentivize malicious actors to spam the network with cheap calldata, possibly overwhelming validators. As such, the proposal was ultimately rejected in favor of more sustainable long-term scalability measures.
## Beyond EIP-4488: Long-Term Scalability Solutions
Post-Merge, Ethereum’s scalability roadmap focuses heavily on several key upgrades:
### 1. Rollups: The Current Workhorse of Scaling
Layer-2 scaling solutions like Optimistic Rollups (Optimism, Arbitrum) and Zero-Knowledge Rollups (zkSync Era, Scroll) remain Ethereum’s primary scaling method. These technologies process transactions off-chain before finalizing them on Ethereum Mainnet, increasing throughput (to hundreds of transactions per second) while keeping costs low.
### 2. Sharding: The Future of Horizontal Scalability
Sharding, expected to be implemented in phases post-Merge, will split Ethereum’s blockchain into smaller “shards” to distribute data storage and validation workload. This will enable significant scalability gains without relying entirely on L2s. The initial phase (Sharding V1 Stateless) will add data availability layers before the full phase (V2) enables execution shards—allowing each shard to execute smart contracts independently.
### 3. Proto-DankSharding: Ethereum’s Medium-Term Scaling Plan
Proto-DankSharding, discussed as a potential intermediate upgrade, proposes an advanced data availability sampling (DAS) scheme. This would enhance rollup scaling by allowing more data to be compressed into block headers, further improving performance before full sharding is ready.
### 4. Verkle Trees: Smaller States for Faster Syncing
Verkle Trees (_quotesmooth.”_commas_, another upcoming upgrade, will replace Ethereum’s current Merkle trees with Verkle trees. These trees are more compact, reducing witness sizes (data needed to verify transactions) and lowering the cost of node synchronization. This makes it easier for users and validators to operate full nodes, improving decentralization.
## Conclusion: The Path to a Scalable Ethereum
While EIP-4488 represented an early exploration of short-term scalability tweaks, Ethereum’s long-term roadmap prioritizes more robust and sustainable solutions. The combination of rollups, sharding, Verkle trees, and other upgrades will gradually increase Ethereum’s transaction throughput, reduce fees, and enhance network resilience—transforming it into a globally accessible, high-performance blockchain platform. The post-Merge era is just the beginning of Ethereum’s scaling journey, with significant improvements expected in the coming years.