Key Points
Ethereum developers have initiated a new move to increase the blockchain network’s gas limit, which has remained the same for a long time. They believe that this change can aid in scaling Ethereum.
On March 20, Eric Connor, a core Ethereum developer, and Mariano Conti, the former head of smart contracts at MakerDAO, launched a new website named ‘pump the gas’. Their aim is to increase the Ethereum gas limit from 30 million to 40 million, which they claim will lower transaction fees on layer 1.
Scaling Ethereum
“This could lead to a 15% to 33% decrease in layer-1 transaction fees,” Connor stated in a March 19 post, before adding, “We are asking solo stakers, client teams, pools, and community members for their assistance.”
The #pumpthegas hashtag has begun to garner support from Ethereum users, stakers, and DeFi investors. Conti noted that a Rocket Pool validator proposed a block with a 40 million gas limit on March 20.
The movement to raise the Ethereum gas limit has gained traction in recent months. In January, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed increasing the gas limit from 30 million, where it has been since August 2021, to 40 million.
Base contributor Jesse Pollak responded that he was “strongly in favor” of raising the Ethereum gas limit to 40 or 45 million. “We have the network capacity, and it will benefit everyone,” he added.
The Ethereum gas limit refers to the maximum amount of gas that can be spent on executing transactions or smart contracts in each block. Gas is the fee in ETH required to conduct a transaction or execute a smart contract on the network.
The website explains that each operation has a predefined gas cost, and contracts have a gas limit they cannot exceed during execution. This prevents malicious contracts from overwhelming the network with infinite loops or excessive resource consumption.
“Increasing the gas block limit by 33% allows Layer 1 Ethereum to process 33% more transaction load in a day,” it stated. It also mentioned that data blobs, introduced in the Dencun upgrade with EIP-4844, significantly reduce layer-2 transaction fees, but not layer-1 fees. “A combination of blobs and gas limit increase can help scale both L1 and L2 Ethereum,” it added.
However, not everyone supports this network adjustment. Venture investor and Ethereum advocate Evan Van Ness stated, “I’m not in favor of raising mainnet gas limit *today* as EIP-4844 just raised the block size,” in a post.
Earlier this year, Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden expressed concern about the proposed increase, arguing that it would increase the size of the blockchain state, which contains account balances and smart contract data.
Size is not the problem, he said at the time, but rather “accessing and modifying it will become slower and slower,” before adding there are “no concrete solutions yet for state growth.”
Other potential drawbacks of increasing the gas limit include increased loads on hardware and the potential risk of network spam and attacks.
