- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed a need to increase the gas limit on the Ethereum blockchain
- Buterin wants the limit increased from 30 million to 40 million
- The limit hasn’t been changed for close to three years
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin continues to look for ways to enhance the Ethereum blockchain with the latest being a suggestion to move the network’s gas limit from 30 million to 40 million. According to Buterin, increasing the gas limit will increase the number of transactions processed on the network. The limit has remained untouched for roughly three years, necessitating Buterin to consider a change since the network’s usage has also increased during this time.
33% is “Modest” and “Reasonable”
In an ask-me-anything (AMA) session on Reddit, Buterin said that the 33% increase would be “modest, reasonable” and beneficial to the decentralized protocol. Since the chain’s launch in 2015, the gas limit has been increasing in response to the network’s usage.
Buterin and his team use a gas limit to control the size of blocks. Revising the limit upwards allows a block to handle more transactions, consequently boosting the network’s throughput.
The Ethereum co-founder’s thought on increasing the limit has ignited mixed reactions within the Ethereum community.
Some who commented on Buterin’s post on Reddit, for example, said that a 33% spike isn’t “modest” and that the “gas limit is already very high.” Ethereum developers like Marius van der Wijden have also pushed back on such a possibility saying that it would also lead to an increase in the chain’s state which currently stands at 267 gigabytes.
Slow Synchronization Times and Higher DoS Attack Chances
Another Ethereum team member Péter Szilágyi observed that raising the gas limit will slow synchronization times and increase the chances for a denial of service (DoS) attack.
What problem does increasing the gas limit solve?
Increasing it definitely has a downside. State will grow faster, sync time will get slower quicker, DoS potential will grow. Would be nice to have a number on those.
That said, what does increasing the gas limit net us?
— Péter Szilágyi (karalabe.eth) (@peter_szilagyi) January 11, 2024
Buterin’s thought on revising the gas limit comes two weeks after he proposed making Ethereum lighter by reducing the number of signatures needed to sign a transaction. The discussion around the Ethereum gas limit and making it lighter adds to Buterin and his team’s efforts to enhance the platform even after welcoming Ethereum 2.0.
With the community divided on the benefits of increasing the network’s gas limit, it’s to be seen whether Buterin will rally enough support around his idea.
