In a recent move, Ethereum developers are pushing to expand the blockchain’s capacity by increasing its gas limit. On March 20, Eric Connor, an Ethereum developer, and Mariano Conti, the former head of smart contracts at MakerDAO, introduced a campaign to increase the gas limit from 30 million to 40 million. Their initiative, launched through a dedicated website named ‘pump the gas,’ aims to reduce transaction fees and improve scalability on the Layer-1 network.
Developers Advocate for Cost Reduction
Connor, in a March 19 post, claimed that this adjustment could lower Layer-1 transaction costs by 15% to 33%. He urged stakeholders, including stakers, client teams, pools, and community members, to support the cause. Furthermore, Conti highlighted an instance where a Rocket Pool validator proposed a block with the desired 40 million gas limit.
The idea of increasing the gas limit has been gathering support for several months. Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, voiced his recommendation in January to raise the limit to 40 million, a proposal echoed by Base contributor Jesse Pollak who stated that the network’s current capacity allows for such an increase, which would benefit all network participants.
Understanding the Gas Limit and Its Impact
The term ‘gas limit’ refers to the cap on the amount of computational work, denoted in gas, that can be included in a block. This defines the maximum resource usage for transactions and smart contract executions, safeguarding the network against abuse from overly taxing operations or infinite loops.
The proposed website for the gas limit increase argues that a 33% raise in the gas cap could significantly enhance the network’s transaction processing capacity per day. It also mentions that despite the introduction of data blobs with the EIP-4844 upgrade, which can lower Layer-2 fees, Layer-1 transaction costs remain unaffected. Combining blobs with a higher gas limit is projected to benefit both network layers.
Nonetheless, the proposal has its detractors, with venture investor and Ethereum supporter Evan Van Ness expressing opposition due to the recent block size increment stemming from EIP-4844. He believes that the mainnet gas limit should not be raised at this time.