The Ethereum senior researcher's proposal EIP-9698 aims to increase the Gas limit by 100 times, with the goal to be achieved within four years. If this proposal is approved, it is expected to significantly enhance the transaction processing capacity of Ethereum's base layer to 2,000 TPS, potentially exceeding the current performance of Solana.
Ethereum has recently faced serious external doubts, seemingly falling behind in competition with other application public chains. However, Dankrad Feist, a senior researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, has proposed an ambitious performance expansion plan 'EIP-9698', which aims to gradually increase the Gas limit of the Ethereum mainnet by 100 times over the next four years, from the current 36 million to 3.6 billion. If this proposal is successfully implemented, it could theoretically enhance the transaction processing capacity of Ethereum's base layer (Layer 1, L1) to 2,000 transactions per second (TPS), a performance level that has already reached twice the current competitor Solana's daily average TPS of around 1,000, sparking heated discussions within the Ethereum community.
Ethereum returns to Layer 1 expansion
For a long time, Ethereum has primarily relied on Layer 2 solutions to address scalability challenges, such as technologies like Rollups. The EIP-9698 proposal shows that Ethereum is rebalancing the possibilities of its scalability roadmap and seeking a balanced development path between L1 and L2.
According to the proposal, EIP-9698 plans to adopt a phased, incremental approach to increase the Gas limit. It is expected to increase the Gas limit by 10 times in the first two years, followed by another 10 times in the last two years, ultimately achieving a total growth target of 100 times within four years. This gradual adjustment will be implemented through a client voting mechanism, providing network participants with ample time to adapt to the changes and reduce potential risks.
The significant increase in Gas limits will bring multiple benefits to Ethereum. The most direct impact is a substantial increase in the number of transactions that can be accommodated in each block, with a single block theoretically able to contain about 6,000 transactions. This is expected to significantly alleviate network congestion, thereby reducing the transaction fees (Gas Fee) paid by users. Meanwhile, the theoretical transaction processing capacity is expected to reach 2,000 TPS. Although there is still a gap compared to some competitors' claimed theoretical peaks, it has significantly narrowed the difference in actual processing capacity (e.g., Solana's observed TPS typically ranges between 800-1,050).
Scalability challenges
Significantly increasing the Gas limit also brings notable technical challenges. First, the pressure faced by current node operators has also significantly increased; larger blocks require more powerful computer hardware to process and store, which may raise the threshold for running full nodes and pose a potential challenge to Ethereum's decentralization. Secondly, the increase in block size may lead to longer propagation times for blocks in the network, affecting network stability and security. Issues such as state growth and execution delays also need to be studied and addressed in depth.
The EIP-9698 proposal is closely related to Ethereum's existing technical roadmap and needs to be coordinated with upcoming upgrades (such as the anticipated Fusaka hard fork at the end of 2025 and the Pectra upgrade in May 2025). This proposal reflects the Ethereum development community's renewed focus on base layer scalability and may guide Ethereum toward a more balanced expansion path that integrates both L1 and L2 efforts to better meet the growing demand for decentralized applications.
Overall, the EIP-9698 proposal is a highly promising bold plan that, if it can overcome technical challenges and be successfully implemented, will have a profound impact on Ethereum's performance and ecosystem, particularly in handling high transaction volumes and reducing user costs.
This proposal has also sparked a new round of community discussions on how to achieve the best balance between scalability, decentralization, and security. Whether Ethereum can maintain its core values and consolidate its leading position while promoting base layer scalability is worth our continued attention.
