Overview

On March 13, 2024, Ethereum completed the Dencun hard fork, officially activating EIP-4844 (blobs), which provides a low-cost data availability solution for Layer 2 (L2) rollups, pushing Ethereum’s scalability to a new level. However, the current blobs mechanism still requires full nodes to store data entirely, limiting network scalability.

PeerDAS (Peer-to-Peer Data Availability Sampling), as the next critical optimization step, aims to reduce node load through peer-to-peer (P2P) network collaboration and data sampling, improving data distribution efficiency and enhancing network throughput.

Vitalik Buterin proposed a goal in his X post: to launch the Fusaka testnet on the day following the Pectra hard fork, verifying the new blobs parameters (target/limit set at 48/72), laying the groundwork for PeerDAS mainnet deployment.

Source: https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1895863075527700959

What is PeerDAS?

PeerDAS is a Peer-to-Peer Data Availability Sampling (DAS) solution designed specifically for blockchain scalability. Its core goal is to allow nodes to verify data availability without downloading all data, laying the groundwork for future upgrades like Danksharding. Its main features include:

Partial Storage: Nodes store only subsets of data and verify overall data availability through sampling.

P2P Distribution: Utilizes peer-to-peer networks to optimize data distribution, reducing bandwidth and storage requirements.

High Scalability: Supports larger-scale data payloads, making it suitable for high-throughput scenarios.

Technical Principles

The implementation of PeerDAS relies on coordinating a series of technologies and protocols. Here is an overview of its primary technical principles:

1. Data Chunking and Erasure Coding

Original data (size N) is expanded through erasure codes (e.g., Reed-Solomon codes) to become k·N (k > 1) and divided into multiple smaller chunks. The original data can still be recovered even if only part of these chunks are obtained (e.g., m chunks, m < k·N). For example, with k=2, losing 50% of the data is still recoverable, ensuring high availability.

2. Random Sampling and Probabilistic Verification

Nodes randomly sample a small number of data chunks (typically a few dozen). Due to the mathematical properties of erasure coding, if the sampling size is sufficient, data completeness can be confirmed with near-100% probability.

For example, if 30 data chunks are sampled, and the missing rate is below a certain threshold (e.g., 10%), one can infer the overall data availability.

3. P2P Network Distribution and Collaboration

Data chunks are stored across multiple nodes and distributed through P2P protocols (such as libp2p’s gossipsub). Each node stores only a portion of the data and provides access to other nodes, avoiding single points of failure and improving distribution efficiency.

4. Incentive Mechanism

To encourage honest storage and sharing, PeerDAS may incentivize nodes through staking rewards (such as a portion of Ethereum gas fees). Malicious behavior (like hiding data) could result in stake slashing penalties, ensuring system stability.

Source: https://medium.com/gaudiy-web3-lab/3ace46a3a9af

Application in Ethereum

PeerDAS was first proposed and widely discussed within the Ethereum ecosystem, especially in the context of Ethereum’s “Sharding” and “Data Availability Layer” design. Ethereum’s future roadmap (such as EIP-4844 and subsequent upgrades) plans to introduce DAS to improve network throughput while maintaining decentralization.

In Ethereum’s implementation of PeerDAS, data availability sampling is used to support data storage and verification for Rollups. For example:

Supporting EIP-4844
EIP-4844 introduces the blob data type for storing temporary data submitted by Rollups. PeerDAS optimizes the distribution and verification of blob data, allowing light clients to participate by downloading only a small sample.

Reducing Node Load
Traditional full nodes must store all data, while PeerDAS allows light clients to efficiently verify data efficiently, significantly lowering hardware requirements (e.g., reducing storage from GB to MB), and enhancing decentralization.

Boosting Rollup Performance
PeerDAS enables Rollups to submit more data on-chain, increasing throughput while maintaining low costs. For example, transaction fees on Optimism and Arbitrum may be further reduced.

Source：https://www.eip4844.com/

Data Availability Solutions Comparison

Besides PeerDAS, there are several other data availability (DA) solutions, each with its own storage, bandwidth, and verification efficiency characteristics. The following is a more comprehensive comparison:

Advantages and Future Outlook

Short-Term Deployment: Enhancing Verification Efficiency and Decentralization

PeerDAS offers significant advantages, particularly in improving blockchain scalability and reducing node operation costs. In the short term, PeerDAS brings benefits in the following aspects:

1. Improved Verification Efficiency:

PeerDAS uses sampling methods to optimize data distribution and verification processes. Nodes only need to focus on and verify a small portion of the data, which greatly improves verification efficiency and reduces latency during the verification process.

2. Enhanced Decentralization:

By lowering hardware requirements, more users can run nodes. According to Etherscan data from March 17, 2025, the current number of full nodes is around 7,000. PeerDAS could potentially increase that to tens of thousands. For example, as of March 22, 2025, the number of nodes had risen to 9,228.

Source：https://etherscan.io/nodetracker

3. Reduced Node Operating Costs:

Since nodes no longer need to process all data, they can reduce storage and bandwidth usage, thereby lowering operational costs. This allows more low-cost nodes to participate in the network, strengthening the decentralization of the blockchain.

4. Enhanced Blockchain Security:

PeerDAS uses distributed verification and erasure coding mechanisms, significantly increasing the difficulty of data tampering. PeerDAS can effectively prevent data loss or malicious tampering through decentralized data availability verification.

Even if some nodes fail, the system can still ensure data integrity and availability through redundancy and verification mechanisms, thus improving overall network security and resilience.

Source: https://etherscan.io/nodetracker

Mid-Term Expansion: Integration and Complementarity with Danksharding

PeerDAS will enter its mid-term expansion phase as technology advances, playing a larger role in blockchain scalability and data availability verification. Its evolving relationship with Danksharding is significant:

1. More Efficient Data Availability Verification:

As blockchain technology and usage demands grow, PeerDAS will keep improving data verification efficiency. Future developments may include optimized sampling strategies and algorithms, making the verification process more efficient and precise, reducing node resource consumption, and increasing the accuracy of the accuracy of data availability checks.

2. Broad Application in Cross-Chain Technology:

PeerDAS can serve as a cross-chain data availability verification solution, improving data exchange efficiency between blockchains and enhancing interoperability. However, to resolve verification conflicts caused by differences in trust models, optimization of consensus mechanisms is required.

3. Enhancing Network Decentralization and Security:

With the increase in node numbers and advancement of decentralization, PeerDAS’s sampling mechanism can effectively enhance data security and resistance to tampering. In the future, PeerDAS could be combined with advanced cryptographic technologies and consensus mechanisms to strengthen further blockchain networks’ resistance to attacks and overall fault tolerance.

Long-Term Vision: Driving Comprehensive Development of the Blockchain Ecosystem

The long-term vision of PeerDAS goes beyond enhancing blockchain scalability and security—it aims to open up a broader range of applications:

1. Support for Smart Contracts and DeFi Applications:

As decentralized finance (DeFi) and smart contracts rapidly evolve, PeerDAS technology is expected to provide more efficient data availability guarantees for these applications. By reducing verification latency and improving resource utilization, PeerDAS can offer more stable support for DeFi protocols, particularly in high-frequency trading scenarios and large-scale contract execution.

2. Integration with Edge Computing and the Internet of Things (IoT):

In the future, PeerDAS has the potential to integrate with edge computing and IoT technologies, enabling more distributed and efficient data verification. Edge devices and IoT nodes can participate in data validation via PeerDAS, reducing reliance on centralized servers and enhancing data availability and processing efficiency on a global scale.

3. Enhanced Integration with AI Technologies:

Looking ahead, PeerDAS could also combine with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, using machine learning algorithms to optimize data sampling and validation processes, thereby improving the efficiency and intelligence of blockchain networks. This can help automate data validation, node management, and network optimization tasks.

In the short term, PeerDAS has already demonstrated strong potential to enhance blockchain verification efficiency, decentralization, and reduce operational costs. Its integration with Danksharding will further drive scalability and security in the medium term. In the long term, PeerDAS is expected to see broad adoption across smart contracts, DeFi, IoT, and AI—becoming an indispensable part of blockchain infrastructure and helping decentralize applications reach mainstream adoption.

Challenges

Despite offering many advantages, PeerDAS also faces several challenges in real-world applications, mainly including the following:

Sampling Accuracy and Security:

PeerDAS relies on data sampling for validation, and the accuracy of sampling is critical to the overall system’s security. If the sampling mechanism is attacked (e.g., Sybil attacks), it could misjudge data availability. This requires the introduction of multi-round sampling or redundant validation.

Network Topology Dependence:
PeerDAS performance depends on the quality of connections between nodes in the network. In decentralized networks, node connectivity may be unstable, which can affect the efficiency of data distribution and validation, especially in environments with many nodes.

Node Participation Rate:
To ensure efficient data availability verification, PeerDAS requires a sufficient number of nodes to participate in the validation process.
If participation is too low, sampling results may be inaccurate. As of March 17, 2025, the current Ethereum network participation rate is around 98%.

Computational and Storage Overhead:
Although PeerDAS reduces the data each node needs to verify, it still requires nodes to perform verification tasks. This may place computational and storage pressure on resource-constrained nodes (e.g., low-end devices). If nodes cannot handle the workload, it may lead to declining network participation.

Protocol Complexity:
PeerDAS introduces new validation mechanisms and protocols, making its implementation more complex than traditional methods. Understanding and deploying this new technical solution requires learning and adaptation for developers and node operators, potentially increasing the system’s technical barrier.

Compatibility with Existing Systems:
Although PeerDAS has strong theoretical scalability, in practice, it may need to integrate with existing blockchain architectures, involving system compatibility issues. Different blockchain platforms may use varying consensus mechanisms and data storage formats, requiring PeerDAS to be adapted and optimized.

Source: https://beaconscan.com/stat/networkparticipation

Conclusion

As technology continues to advance, PeerDAS—an emerging data availability sampling (DAS) solution—has demonstrated great potential in enhancing blockchain scalability and security. By reducing storage and bandwidth requirements for nodes, and improving network scalability and decentralization, PeerDAS effectively addresses the high-throughput challenges currently facing blockchain systems.

Although the technology still faces some challenges—such as sampling accuracy, network topology, and node participation—ongoing improvements and expanding use cases suggest that PeerDAS is likely to become an indispensable part of future blockchain ecosystems. In particular, in areas like smart contracts, DeFi, cross-chain technology, and integration with edge computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), PeerDAS will offer more stable, efficient, and secure support for blockchain innovation and adoption.

Overall, PeerDAS represents an important direction in blockchain technology development. It not only solves the data availability problem but also lays the foundation for the next generation of decentralized applications, pushing blockchain technology toward a more efficient and secure future.