SKALE vs Ethereum

The following explores SKALE Network and SKALE Chains vs Ethereum

Definitions

SKALE Network - a network of Layer 1 blockchains that are fully EVM compatible, built different to scale gaming, AI, DeFi, and more.

SKALE Chain - a singular Layer 1 within the SKALE Network. Often referred to as a mini Ethereum with superpowers.

Ethereum - the original programmable Layer 1 blockchain that is also the biggest in the world in terms of direct total value secured

Blockchain Comparison

	SKALE Network	Ethereum
Gas Fees	Always Free	Variable
Block Times	~1s	12s
Finality	Single Slot	>12 minutes
Block Gas Limit	268,435,455	~36,000,000
Virtual Machine	EVM	EVM
Scaling Type	Horizontal	Blobs
Contract Code Size Limit	64 kb	24kb
EIP-1559	Partial	Yes
Blobs EIP-4844	No	Yes
Native AA EIP-7702	No	Yes
Consensus	Asynchronous, Leaderless BFT	Gasper

Table last updated 4/3/25

Gas Fees

Every SKALE Chain in the network has zero gas fees forever and always. While it is possible to introduce an ecosystem token or fee token at the contract level; a SKALE Chain by default has zero gas fees and gasless transactions enabled. This differs from Ethereum who uses a variable gas fee called Ether which users must acquire (generally through purchasing) in order to execute transactions or developers who must use it to deploy smart contracts.

This gives SKALE a unique advantage that few other blockchains in the space can match from both an operational efficiency perspective and from a user experience [and developer experience] perspective.

Block Times

Block times on SKALE can vary depending on the chain load. The default empty block — which is when a chain has no transactions — on a SKALE Chain is 10 seconds. Under active load, SKALE Chains tend to operate with block times of 1-1.2 seconds on average with some chains doing subsecond blocks with sufficient validator hardware.

Ethereum has consistent 12 second block times meaning that it takes much longer for a transaction to be added to the blockchain especially with dynamic gas pricing where short term gas spikes can result in a transaction taking multiple blocks to be profitable for a validator to add it in.

Finality

Finality is the act of being permanent on a blockchain. Traditionally blockchains including Etheruem have had to deal with forking. Forking brings about both short term UX negativity (i.e waiting for multiple block confirmations) as well potential MEV vulnerabilities such as tail-forking.

SKALE solves both the short term UX problem with single-slot finality, meaning after one block transaction state is fully final and cannot change. Additionally, leaderless consensus enables unified validation which when paired with single-slot finality solves time bandit attacks making this form of MEV not impossible on SKALE.

Ethereum on the other hand has a more complex form of finalization through Gasper. In Gasper, finality requires a two-thirds (2/3) agreement that a block is canonical. To do so, blocks on Ethereum must pass through a two-step upgrade procedure where:

1. Two-thirds of the total staked ether must have voted in favor of a particular block being included in the canonical chain. This upgrades a block to justified status. Blocks can revert in this stage.

2. When another block is justified on top of a justified block it is upgraded to finalized. Finalizing a block is a commitement to include the block in the canonical chain. It cannot be reverted without an attacker spending (through destruction) millions of ether to do so.

The block upgrades do not happen in every slot, but instead occur only for epoch-boundry blocks. There is one block per slot on Ethereum meaning one slot occurs every 12 seconds and each epoch is 32 slots. In order to full upgrade, a pair of checkpoints is viewed and should contain a “supermajority link” where two successive checkpoints must exist. Two successive checkpoints would be two-thirds of the total staked ether voting that checkpoint B is the correct descendant of checkpoint A).

With epochs being 32 slots, slots being 12 seconds, and two successful checkpoints required; this means that finality on Ethereum is not achievable without >=12 minutes of operations, giving SKALE a significant advantage.

Virtual Machine

Ethereum — the pioneer of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) — is the most well known Layer 1 blockchain in the world. Many blockchain networks including SKALE have adopted the EVM in order to better cater toward the existing developer community. SKALE’s Ethereum Virtual Machine does have some small differences from Ethereum, but generally, most smart contracts should work right away on SKALE.

Scaling the L1

SKALE and Ethereum are vastly different in how they scale.

Ethereum primarily makes use of Layer 2s who post transactions back to Ethereum primarily through blobs. This creates further finality issues with most L2s having >60s plus finality back to the Layer 1 with potential reorganizations further down the road with the long finality time of Ethereum itself.

SKALE on the other hand, which was originally a scaling solution for Ethereum scales through the interconnected blockchain model. dApps that start on a shared SKALE Chain can easily migrate to their own SKALE Layer 1 chain and connect back to the first chain without an issue.

While Ethereum touts itself as the base settlement layer and leaves primary execution to L2s, SKALE enables developers to execute and settle in real-time all on the same blockchain.

Contract Code Size Limit

The contract code size limit is the amount of code that can be deployed in a single smart contract to the blockchain. All of the common tips and tricks you can use on Ethereum such as using Libraries to reduce contract size are valid on SKALE.

The default contract size limit on SKALE Chains is 64kb compared to Ethereum’s 24kb. The limit can be set higher on SKALE Chains, however, in most cases it makes sense to start moving logic to libraries if contracts are that large.

EIP-1559 Support

SKALE supports EIP-1559 at the network level. Gas has no value and therefore, the actual burning does not occur and sFUEL is recycled to Etherbase, however, all wallets support EIP-1559 fully.