Share this article
Namesake of Ethereum's 'Danksharding' Says 'Data Availability' Too Confusing a Term
The Ethereum Foundation's Dankrad Feist says he thinks a lot of people are stumped by the term "data availability," even as the concept gains momentum in blockchain tech circles.
Updated Sep 12, 2023, 4:52 p.m. Published Sep 12, 2023, 4:52 p.m.
Find the blockchain term “data availability” too confusing?
Don’t worry, so does one top blockchain expert.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Dankrad Feist, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, said Monday during a panel discussion at the Permissionless crypto conference in Austin, Texas, that the industry should consider “data publishing” as an alternative label for the practice.
So-called data availability refers to the idea that blockchains can work faster when the function of storing data is handled separately from the job of processing and confirming transactions. The data can then be independently verified or downloaded when users need it.
The concept of data availability is at the root of several aspiring blockchain projects including Avail and Celestia – and at the heart of discussions on how to scale Ethereum and its ecosystem of sub-networks to handle many more transactions.
Ethereum developers separately are working on their own data-storage solution for the blockchain known as “Danksharding” - named after Feist. According to Feist's LinkedIn page, he has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and applied mathematics from the University of Cambridge.
“It seems to me that we should rename data availability to data publishing,” Feist said. People “catch on quicker when we talk about data publishing.”
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Solana’s Drift Launches v3, With 10x Faster Trades
With v3, the team says that about 85% of market orders will fill in under half a second, and liquidity will deepen enough to bring slippage on larger trades down to around 0.02%.
What to know:
- Drift, one of the largest perpetuals trading platforms on Solana, has launched Drift v3, a major upgrade meant to make on-chain trading feel as fast and smooth as using a centralized exchange.
- The new version will deliver 10-times faster trade execution thanks to a rebuilt backend, marking the largest performance jump the project has made so far.
Top Stories
