Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has put forward a significant change to the gas fee structure through Ethereum Improvement Protocol (EIP) 7706. This proposal aims to introduce a third type of gas fee specifically for call data, which is crucial information transmitted to smart contracts.
Currently, Ethereum transactions involve two main types of gas fees: one for execution and another for storage. The execution fee covers the computational power required to process a transaction, while the storage fee pertains to the cost of storing data. However, this dual fee structure has been a point of contention within the Ethereum community.
EIP 7706 suggests a unified approach by incorporating a separate fee for call data, rather than using different mechanisms for execution costs and storage in blobs. This change could potentially reduce transaction costs for data-heavy transactions that are not computationally intensive.
Under the proposed model, Ethereum will allocate unique charges to the data transferred during transactions, separate from the costs of executing contract code or storing data. The new transaction type will include max_basefee and priority_fee as vectors, providing values for execution gas, blob gas, and call data gas.
Buterin’s proposal aims to make call data significantly cheaper by implementing a separate gas fee for it. This would also reduce the theoretical maximum call data size of a block. With this dynamic model, fees would be adjusted simultaneously, potentially leading to lower costs overall.
However, despite the potential benefits, there are challenges associated with this proposal. The Ethereum network has been struggling with high gas fees for years, and the expected improvements from the move to proof-of-stake have not fully materialized.
The Ethereum community has mixed reactions to EIP 7706. Some view it as a necessary step to address ongoing issues with gas fees, while others are cautious about its implementation. As the community deliberates on this proposal, its potential impact on the network’s scalability and cost-efficiency remains a topic of keen interest.