Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin calls for increasing gas limit to 33%

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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin advocates a “modest” increase in gas limits to potentially increase network throughput.

On January 10, during a Reddit “ask-me-anything” Q&A session organized by the Ethereum Foundation’s research team, Buterin notes The gas limit has not been increased for nearly 3 years, which is the longest period in the history of the protocol.

Buterin said in the research team’s 11th AMA:

“Frankly, I think even today a modest increase in gas limits would be reasonable.”

Buterin also did some simple calculations and said that means the number would increase to about 40 million.according to Ether scanthe current Gas limit is 30 million, thus an increase of 33%.

Ethereum’s average Gas limit over time | Source: Etherscan

After the launch of Ethereum in 2015, the average Gas limit was approximately 3 million Gas, and this limit has continued to increase as the network has been used and adopted.

The Ethereum Gas limit refers to the maximum amount of Gas that can be used to execute a transaction or smart contract in each block. Gas is the fee required to conduct transactions or execute contracts on the blockchain.

The Gas limit is set to ensure that blocks are not too large, which will affect network performance and synchronization. Validators can also dynamically adjust Gas limits within certain parameters when creating blocks.

Increasing the gas limit allows more transactions to enter each block, theoretically increasing the overall throughput and capacity of the network. However, it also increases the load on the hardware and the potential risk of cyberattacks and spam.

according to Ether scan, the average Gas price or transaction cost on Ethereum is currently about 35 gwei or $1.89. However, they have increased since the beginning of 2024 and are much higher for complex smart contract operations.

Network gas charges soared to a 2023 high of 150 gwei in May due to the inscription craze. Gwei is the denomination of Ethereum and represents one billionth of ETH.

Ethereum and Bitcoin users reignited the scalability debate in November as gas fees soared amid another round of Inscription hype.