Reducing Ethereum’s Maximum Block Size to Scale Network

The block size of the Ethereum network doubled over the last year amid the growing popularity of Ethereum Inscriptions. Vitalik Buterin believes that it’s necessary to optimize the maximum block size as soon as possible and offers several options.

Vitalik Buterin, Co-Founder of Ethereum, and Toni Wahrstätter, Analyst at the Ethereum Foundation, shared their views on reducing Ethereum’s maximum block size, suggesting five main options.

Reducing the maximum block size is essential for improving network scalability. To make space for more data in the future, Buterin and Wahrstätter suggest these changes:

1. Increase the block gas limit from 16 to 42. This will lower the maximum block size from ~1.78 MB to ~0.68 MB.
2. Increase the gas limit but reduce the cost of other simpler operations. This will not only decrease the maximum block size but also balance the cost.
3. Introduce limits on the amount of calldata per block at ~1.332 MB, with a gas limit of 16.
4. Create a mechanism to automatically adjust the gas limit depending on demand. The initial block size will then be fixed at 125 KB and increase to 1 MB as needed. At the same time, the gas limit for each additional KB will be calculated automatically.
5. Create a loyalty program for EVM applications that require the use of a large amount of intra-block space. The larger the block size required by the dApp, the higher the gas requirements. This approach will reduce the block size to 0.68 MB and decrease its variance.

All of the approaches described by Buterin and Wahrstätter are valid to varying degrees, but it’s almost impossible to find a golden mean. Increasing the gas limit can potentially reduce the popularity of the network, and other options, although more attractive to users and developers, require time-consuming and complex technical changes.

Earlier, Vitalik Buterin suggested increasing Ethereum’s gas limit by 33% to improve network capacity.

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