Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist has proposed a plan to scale Ethereum’s gas limit by 100x over four years, aiming to enhance transaction capacity and network efficiency.
Background:
- Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist submitted a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP-9698) on April 27, suggesting a gradual, deterministic gas limit increase beginning around June 1, 2025 at epoch 369017.
- Under the proposal, Ethereum’s gas limit would increase by a factor of 10 over approximately two years, followed by a final tenfold jump, resulting in a total 100x increase over a four-year period.
- The current gas limit of 36 million would theoretically grow to 3.6 billion, expanding Ethereum’s potential transaction capacity from around 20 TPS (transactions per second) to approximately 2,000 TPS.
- The plan introduces a predictable exponential growth schedule to align network expansion with advancements in hardware and protocol optimization, according to Feist.
Why should you pay attention?
- A 100x gas limit boost could significantly improve Ethereum’s base-layer scalability, allowing it to handle thousands more transactions per block and making it more competitive against faster networks like Solana.
- If implemented, Ethereum could expand its transaction throughput without fully relying on layer-2 solutions, addressing critiques about ecosystem fragmentation and poor user experience across rollups and sidechains.
- The proposal would help future-proof Ethereum against rising demand while giving node operators and developers time to adapt, due to the gradual nature of the scaling schedule.
- This could influence future client upgrades, validator participation, and even application development strategies on Ethereum's mainnet.
- Interestingly, the proposal follows Ethereum’s earlier gas limit increase from 30 million to 36 million in February 2025, the first major adjustment since the London hard fork in 2021.
Who said what?
- Dankrad Feist, Ethereum researcher, stated in his proposal:
“By introducing a predictable exponential growth pattern as a client default, this EIP encourages a sustainable and transparent gas limit trajectory, aligned with expected advancements in hardware and protocol efficiency.”
- He acknowledged potential risks:
“A rapid increase in the gas limit may stress less-optimized nodes and increase block propagation times. However, the gradual increments per epoch offer ample time to adapt and optimize.”
Zooming out:
- Feist’s EIP-9698 marks a strategic pivot in Ethereum’s ongoing scalability conversation, after years of focusing on layer-2 solutions like rollups for scaling.
- Critics argue that Ethereum’s layer-2-heavy approach has fragmented the ecosystem and created siloed user experiences, with minimal interoperability across rollups.
- Alongside EIP-9698, Ethereum developers are exploring other base-layer scalability enhancements, such as EIP-9678 under the upcoming Fusaka hard fork, which proposes a fourfold gas limit increase potentially slated for late 2025.
- Meanwhile, Ethereum’s next major upgrade, Pectra, is scheduled to deploy in May 2025, bringing account abstraction and additional optimizations that could further complement scalability efforts.
- Whether Feist’s proposal gains widespread support remains to be seen, but it clearly signals renewed momentum toward enhancing Ethereum’s core throughput capabilities.
