EIP-7516 is an Ethereum Improvement Proposal allowing smart contracts to access the current base fee for data blobs on-chain directly. EIP-7516 helps rollup contracts to manage and predict their data blob costs more effectively.^[1]

Overview

EIP-7516 “BLOBBASEFEE opcode” Introduces the opcode BLOBBASEFEE, which is the same as the BASEFEE opcode associated with the EIP-3198 protocol, except that BLOBBASEFEE returns the basic fee for a Blob according to the EIP-4844 protocol included in the current Cancún upgrade.^[4]

As the blob market fluctuates via the dynamic pricing model, layer 2 contracts will need near real-time pricing information of the blob market to ensure proper accounting. Alongside EIP-4844, the corresponding EIP-7516 will ship to create the opcode BLOBBASEFEE, which rollups and layer 2s will utilize to query the current blob base-fee from the block header.^[3]

EIP-7516 is an improvement directly related to proto-danksharding, introducing the BLOBBASEFEE opcode to enable smart contracts to programmatically access the current blob base fee. This feature is particularly useful for contracts dealing with large data blobs, as it allows them to account for the blob gas price in a trustless manner. The cost is identical to the BASEFEE opcode's cost, reflecting the simplicity of making available data that is already in the header.^[1]

Authors

• Carl Beekhuizen