Ethereum developers have proposed increasing the gas limit per block to 150 million units

What’s new? Ethereum developers are exploring the possibility of quadrupling the gas limit in the underlying blockchain as one of the key features of the next post- Pectra hardfork, known as Fusaka. The initiative is being discussed in the project community as part of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) number 9678, submitted by Ethereum Foundation developer Sophia Gold.

Developer report

What else is known? The proposal would increase the gas limit to 150 million units. During the last All Core Devs Execution (ACDE) meeting, it was put forward as a key feature of the Fusaka upgrade, as reported by Ethereum developer Tim Beiko following the meeting on April 24.

The developers noted the need to scale the Ethereum core blockchain at an execution level that can be achieved without introducing additional features.

At the same time, they admitted that increasing the gas limit would cause errors in execution clients. As such, developers of the latter will need time for testing.

“While the gas limit is ultimately set by validators, we agreed that having an EIP to coordinate client defaults would help keep this a priority and ensure all clients update their defaults by the time Fusaka goes live,” Beiko said.

Earlier this year, blockchain validators supported an increase in the gas limit per block: it currently stands at just under 36 million. Previously, after the increase in 2021, it stood at 30 million.

The gas limit in Ethereum is the most important parameter that determines the network’s ability to process transactions. It is the basic unit of measurement of the computational effort required to execute transactions or smart contracts.

Every operation performed on the Ethereum network, from simple token transfers to complex interactions via smart contracts, requires a certain amount of gas. This mechanism ensures that users pay for the resources they consume and prevents attackers from overloading the network.

Thus, the gas limit defines the maximum amount of gas that all transactions within a single block can consume. This limit is a critical defense measure against network congestion and potential DoS attacks.

Fusaka’s predecessor Pectra upgrade is due to be deployed on the mainnet in May. Fusaka in turn could be implemented in late 2025.