Vitalik Buterin Proposes a 33% Increase in Ethereum Gas Limit

In a recent discussion on Reddit, Vitalik Buterin made new proposals regarding the gas limit on Ethereum.

The Ethereum founder suggested increasing the maximum gas limit per block by 33%. Based on current figures, this proposal would raise the limit from 30 million gas to 40 million gas.

This proposal essentially aims to expand the block size limit on Ethereum, potentially accommodating more transactions per block.

However, on the flip side, the network may face risks from spam transactions, affecting the stability of transaction fees.

The last time the Ethereum network increased the gas limit per block was in August 2021, coinciding with the EIP-1559 upgrade.

History of Ethereum Gas Limit Adjustments. Source: Etherscan

The proposal quickly sparked numerous noteworthy discussions within the crypto community on social media platform X (formerly Twitter). Some believe this proposal is necessary to encourage activity to migrate back from Layer-2 to Layer-1.

"Ethereum execution layer has been in a weird middle ground imo, should prob either:Commit to making it better, increasing gas, more client optimization work, statelessness, etc, orYeet everyone off the L1, low gas, extend 30-second block times, etc, Celestia-style," shared Jon Charbonneau.

Ethereum execution layer has been in a weird middle ground imo, should prob either:

• Commit to making it better, increasing gas, more client optimization work, statelessness, etc, or
• Yeet everyone off the L1, low gas, extend 30 second block times, etc, Celestia-style

However, representatives of popular Layer-2 solutions believe that expanding the block limit would benefit all parties.

"I'm strongly in support of increasing @ethereum gas limit to 40-45m - we have the network headroom and will be beneficial for all parties," tweeted Jesse Pollak.

Late 2023 and early 2024 have seen numerous posts and new proposals from Vitalik Buterin. Previously, he suggested various approaches for implementing Single-slot Finality and announced Ethereum's 2024 roadmap.