Vitalik Buterin proposed to increase the gas limit on the Ethereum network by a third, which, in his opinion, will improve its throughput. However, developers disagree with his opinion, especially since the network is about to update its account abstraction standard to reduce gas consumption.
During an AMA session on Reddit, Vitalik Buterin, Co-Founder of Ethereum, said that the network’s gas limit didn’t get an increase for almost three years, the longest period in the protocol’s history.
Vitalik said that increasing the gas limit would result in a significant improvement in network capacity. Having made calculations, he noted that the optimal level of the gas limit today is 40 million. By the way, Etherscan data shows that the current gas limit is 30 million. Thus, Vitalik proposes to increase it by 33%.
Ethereum’s gas limit determines the maximum amount of gas consumed to execute transactions or smart contracts in each block. The average gas limit at the launch of the blockchain network in 2015 was around 3 million and has been gradually increasing ever since.
Some blockchain network developers called Vitalik’s proposal immodest and unwise. Marius Van Der Wijden, Member of the Ethereum core development team, explained in detail why Vitalik’s proposed increase in the gas limit would negatively affect the performance of the blockchain network. He said it would increase the size of the blockchain’s full version, which contains account balances and smart contract data, as well as extend synchronization times and lower client diversity.
Another Ethereum developer, Peter Szilagyi, agrees with Marius, saying that increasing the gas limit theoretically boosts the overall throughput and capacity of the network by allowing more transactions to be included in each block. But it also adds to the load on equipment and the potential risk of DDoS attacks on the network.
Notably, Buterin’s proposal comes amid the Ethereum Foundation’s preparations for changes to the blockchain network’s account abstraction standard (ERC-4337). The planned update is intended to reduce gas costs on the Ethereum network for Layer 2 protocols.
The update will allow users to use many different types of transaction signatures and pay for gas in a variety of ways. This approach will enable more accurate estimation of the amount of gas needed and reduce costs, especially on Layer 2 networks, as these changes reduce the amount of data.
The Ethereum Foundation plans to implement the update at the end of February this year, starting with a security audit.
For the record, Etherscan data shows that as of 14:00 (GMT+2), January 12, the average price per transaction on the Ethereum network is $1.34. Gas fees on the network peaked at the end of 2023 due to the hype surrounding EVM Inscriptions.
The Ethereum blockchain network roadmap for 2024 was recently unveiled, and Vitalik Buterin spoke about Ethereum’s non-financial opportunities.
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