Researcher Dankrad Feist at the Ethereum Foundation proposes a major change in network gas limits, aiming to improve transaction capacity and network performance.
On April 27th, Feist submitted the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 9698. This suggests that Ethereum’s gas limit will grow 100 times over the next four years through automated client-side configuration.
According to Feist:
“Current gas limiting mechanisms rely on minor/operator votes that lack adjustment and predictability. While flexible, this approach can lead to stagnation or excessively sensitive increases.
By introducing predictable exponential growth patterns as client defaults, this EIP promotes a sustainable, transparent gas-limited trajectory that is consistent with expected advances in hardware and protocol efficiency. ”
Ethereum community member Fabda.eth explained that Feist’s plan will bring a 100-fold increase, boosting the network’s capacity to around 3.6 billion gas, supporting approximately 2,000 and 6,000 transactions per block.
This increases the current gas limit of the network approximately 36 million times.
In particular, Feist’s proposal coincides with similar proposals by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. In February, Buterin advocated a 10x increase in gas limits despite increasing reliance on layer 2 solutions, claiming it would support the inclusion of basic layer transactions and development of applications.
Ethereum developers express concern
While many within the community see the potential benefits of increasing the gas restrictions of blockchain networks, some developers have called attention to Feist’s proposed aggressive growth pace.
Lukasz Rozmej, core developer of Ethereum, warned that expansions must be manually agreed or maintained over time to avoid unexpected network burdens.
Ethereum Foundation developer Jochem Brouwer reflected these sentiments. He warned that targeting a 100x increase within four years could prove to be too aggressive.
Instead, he advocated a more measured approach, suggesting a double increase in gas limits over the next six months.
Brouwer added:
“Before you commit to committing to this 100x increase on this 100x schedule, let’s do this in the steps. If you find yourself at a high limit, you’ll have a problem (so you’ll need to coordinate with all nodes and opt out and shut it down again).”
