Ethereum co-founder 'Vitalik Buterin' and researcher Toni Wahrstätter have jointly proposed the Ethereum Improvement Proposal 'EIP-7983', suggesting the addition of a gas limit for each transaction, set at 16,777,216 (i.e., 2²⁴), hoping to enhance Ethereum's resilience against denial-of-service attacks (DoS) and optimize the overall stability and efficiency of transaction processing.
Currently, Ethereum has a gas limit of about 36 million per block, but there is no clear restriction on individual transactions.
According to the proposal released earlier today (the 7th), adding a gas limit to transactions is expected to enhance the network's ability to fend off denial-of-service attacks (DoS), improve network stability, and provide more predictable transaction processing costs.
The proposal points out that setting the gas limit for a single transaction at 16,777,216 (2²⁴) is intended to 'define a clear and predictable execution boundary while allowing for complex transaction calculations', attempting to strike a delicate balance between functional flexibility and network stability. This limit is sufficient to support current mainstream application scenarios, including smart contract deployment and complex DeFi operations, while ensuring that Ethereum can maintain consistent performance levels under high load.
According to the proposal, if a gas limit is not set for individual transactions, it may lead to a series of potential risks, including inefficient load distribution, vulnerability to quadratic attacks, and challenges in zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM) compatibility and parallel execution.
It is worth noting that the gas limit for a single transaction set at 16,777,216 (2²⁴) will serve as a 'universal standard for the entire network'. Transactions exceeding the gas limit will be automatically rejected, regardless of the block gas limit set by miners or validators.
The proposal also candidly states that this change, while not backward compatible, will have a limited impact on the number of users and dApps since most transactions currently consume gas far below that limit.
"'Vitalik' initiates EIP-7983: Proposing to add a gas limit for single transactions to mitigate DoS attack risks" was first published on (Blockkey).
