According to Cointelegraph, Ethereum core developers are contemplating a substantial increase in the layer 1 gas limit as a key feature for the upcoming Fusaka hard fork, following the Pectra upgrade. The proposal, outlined in Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 9678, suggests raising the gas limit to 150 million. This proposal was introduced on April 23 by Sophia Gold, a developer with the Ethereum Foundation's protocol support team.
During the recent All Core Devs Execution (ACDE) meeting, discussions centered on making the gas limit increase a priority for Fusaka, as highlighted by Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko in an April 24 meeting summary. Beiko noted that an EIP has been drafted to align client defaults and maintain this as a priority. Although unconventional, this approach is not without precedent, as seen with EIP-7840. The plan is to merge the EIP early next week and formally include it in the next ACDE.
The developers anticipate identifying necessary in-protocol changes to support a higher gas limit, which may lead to additional EIPs being incorporated into Fusaka, despite the fork's scope being finalized. The Pectra upgrade is set to launch on the mainnet in May, with Fusaka potentially going live in late 2025.
The motivation behind increasing the gas limit stems from a strong interest in scaling layer 1 execution, which could be achieved by implementing new features. However, this requires guidance from execution layer developers, as higher gas limits may reveal bugs in clients that need addressing. This necessitates time for client developers to test and resolve any issues, making it sensible to include this as an EIP in a hard fork.
While the gas limit is ultimately determined by validators, the developers agreed that having an EIP to coordinate client defaults would help prioritize this initiative and ensure all clients update their defaults by the time Fusaka is operational. The average Ethereum gas limit was approximately 30 million following an increase in August 2021, according to Ycharts data. Validators supported raising the network's gas limit on February 4, increasing the maximum gas used for transactions in a single Ethereum block to just under 36 million, as per Ycharts data.
