blake2f

Networks:

Ethereum Mainnet

Time range:

Start 2025-12-29T00:00:00Z

End 2026-02-26T23:59:59Z

precompiles execution blake2f

Authors

Sam Calder-Mason

Matty Evans

Published March 12, 2026

Question

Who uses blake2f and how much computation are they requesting per call?

Background

blake2f (0x09) runs the BLAKE2b compression function F. It was added in EIP-152 to support Zcash's Equihash verification on Ethereum. Gas cost scales with the number of rounds requested.

With only 3,362 calls over the analysis period, blake2f is the second least-used precompile. A handful of contracts drive all the usage.

Investigation

Gas distribution

Gas scales with the number of BLAKE2b rounds. The distribution shows what round counts callers are requesting.

▶ View Query: precompile_blake2f_gas_dist

Top callers

Note: The callers data below covers a smaller window (~6,000 blocks) because the self-join query needed to resolve parent contracts is too expensive to run over the full range. The gas distribution above uses the full 426K-block range.

▶ View Query: precompile_blake2f_callers

Takeaways

blake2f is barely used: 3,362 calls over ~426K blocks
Usage is concentrated in a handful of contracts