To pump the gas or not? Raising the Ethereum gas limit has been a major topic of discussion between researchers, users, and community members as a solution to scaling Ethereum.
There is a divide, with some believing that increasing the limit is a great move in scaling Ethereum, especially since the network’s capacity has improved over time. Others remain skeptical, fearing it could threaten Ethereum’s core values of decentralization and security.
So, let’s dive into the activities sparking the debate and explore the upsides and downsides of the limit increase.
Highlighting different suggestions to increase the gas limit as a means of scaling Ethereum
- During an Ethereum AMA (Ask Me Anything) in January 2024, Vitalik proposed increasing the gas limit from 30M to 40M, aligning his recommendation with Moore’s Law and the improvements in hardware capabilities.
- There have been discussions within the community suggesting an increase to 60M, doubling the network’s current gas limit.
- Toni Wahrstätter, a Researcher at Ethereum Foundation, advised caution and suggested initially kicking off the scaling at 36M. This recommendation is currently viewed as the first achievable milestone.
Points in favour of raising the gas limit
- Better scalability: By increasing the gas limit, the network can process and handle more activity simultaneously and on-chain, providing a different scaling approach from rollups.
- Lower transaction fees: Users wouldn’t have to fight over limited space by paying higher fees—or maybe they still would, but with more room, the chances of outrageous fees would shrink.
- Higher network activity and broader adoption: Lower fees mean that more people will be able to transact, allowing broader adoption.
- Room for innovative dapps: Due to their heavy computational demands, some decentralized applications, like on-chain AI models or fully on-chain games, may only be possible with a higher gas limit.
Arguments against the gas limit increase
- More sophisticated hardware: Raising the gas limit means validators will need to upgrade and maintain more powerful hardware to accommodate the growth, translating to more bills for them.
- Centralization: The limit raise could make running a node more challenging and expensive, putting the network in the hands of a few and pushing it toward centralization.
- Delayed execution time: A higher gas limit will allow for more computational work, leading to longer execution time, as nodes will be processing more data. Whether this delay becomes a problem depends on how often it causes forks or missed slots—whether it causes the blockchain to split or the nodes to fall behind regularly. If it becomes too common, it could destabilize the network.
- Exploitative behaviour on the blockchain: With increased gas limits, miners and validators have more opportunities to rearrange, add, or remove transactions in a block to gain extra profit (this is called Maximal Extractable Value, or MEV). This could lead to network strain and threaten the security and stability of the network.
Conclusion
While raising the gas limit can be seen as a natural step in the evolution of the Ethereum network, both sides of the debate have valid points and concerns. However, as Ethereum scaling remains a key goal, this opportunity to expand the network’s capacity can be achieved while mitigating the cons. Solutions like EIP-7623, which proposes an increase in the cost of including data in Ethereum transactions to reduce block sizes, can help keep block sizes manageable. Also, a gradual, step-by-step approach to raising the gas limit can ensure a balance between growth and stability.
