Gas Fees Falling? Ethereum’s Fusaka Upgrade Promises Relief, But Will It Spark a Rally?

Ethereum is preparing for one of its biggest upgrades in recent years. Called Fusaka, this update is scheduled for December 3, 2025, and aims to make the network faster, cheaper, and easier to use. For everyday users frustrated by high gas fees, this could mean a big change. Developers hope lower costs will encourage people to return to the Ethereum mainnet for activities like DeFi trading, NFT minting, and simple transfers. But while optimism is rising, some analysts warn that lower fees alone might not be enough to keep Ethereum’s momentum going in a tough economic environment.

What Is the Fusaka Upgrade?

Fusaka is Ethereum’s first major hard fork since the Pectra upgrade in May 2025. It includes between 11 and 12 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), which are changes designed to improve scalability and efficiency. The most talked-about change is the potential jump in Ethereum’s gas limit. Right now, each block can handle about 30 million units of gas. With Fusaka, this could increase up to 120 million units per block, a fourfold rise. In simple terms, this would allow many more transactions to be processed in each block without automatically pushing fees higher. Developers are already testing this change on private networks and public testnets like Holesky. Early results show that basic transfers, which currently cost about $0.50, could drop to under $0.10. That’s a major difference for cost-sensitive users, especially in developing countries.

Ethereum has long faced criticism for high transaction fees. Even after previous upgrades like Dencun, which reduced Layer-2 costs by introducing “blobs” of compressed data, the main network has remained relatively expensive compared to rivals. This has driven many users toward Layer-2 solutions such as Arbitrum and Optimism, where transactions are cheaper and faster. Fusaka is designed to pull some of that activity back to the Ethereum mainnet. If successful, it could reverse the recent decline in usage. Daily active addresses on Ethereum have dropped by about 15% since June 2025, currently sitting at 450,000. By lowering costs, Ethereum could once again become attractive for smaller traders and retail users.

Timeline of the Fusaka Rollout

To ensure a smooth launch, developers are running the upgrade in stages:

This phased rollout shows that Ethereum developers are taking a careful approach. By testing on smaller networks first, they can fix problems before rolling out changes on the main blockchain where billions of dollars are at stake.

The Bigger Picture

Fusaka is not happening in isolation. It follows a series of Ethereum upgrades focused on making the network more efficient, including the Dencun update earlier in 2025. Together, these efforts reflect Ethereum’s long-term shift toward a rollup-centric model, where most activity takes place on Layer-2 solutions but still relies on the Ethereum mainnet for security. If Fusaka succeeds, Ethereum could see a revival of mainnet activity and regain some of the market share lost to other blockchains. However, if demand quickly catches up, fees could rise again, undoing much of the progress.

The countdown to December is now underway. Developers are running final tests, and communities are speculating on the impact. For users, the promise is simple: cheaper, faster transactions on Ethereum itself, not just on rollups. Whether that promise translates into real adoption and whether it boosts ETH’s price remains to be seen. But one thing is clear, Fusaka is a critical step in Ethereum’s ongoing evolution, and the crypto world will be watching closely as the upgrade goes live.