Ethereum Improvement Proposal Aims to Boost Transaction Capacity

According to Cointelegraph, Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist has introduced a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP-9698) that could significantly increase the Ethereum mainnet's gas limit, potentially enhancing its transaction capacity. The proposal, unveiled on April 27, suggests a "deterministic gas limit growth schedule" starting at epoch 369017, approximately around June 1, 2025. This schedule would gradually increase the gas limit by a factor of 10 over two years, culminating in a final tenfold increase. Feist, known for the blockchain's "danksharding" data storage solution, emphasized that Ethereum clients would need to vote on the proposal for it to be implemented. He stated that the EIP aims to introduce a predictable exponential growth pattern as a client default, promoting a sustainable and transparent gas limit trajectory aligned with advancements in hardware and protocol efficiency. Currently, Ethereum can reach up to 20 transactions per second (TPS) in blocks dominated by simple transactions. The proposed 100x gas limit increase could theoretically boost Ethereum's TPS to 2,000, positioning it to compete with platforms like Solana, which processes between 800 to 1,050 TPS and has a theoretical TPS of 65,000. The proposal would expand the current gas limit from 36 million to 3.6 billion, potentially accommodating around 6,000 transactions in Ethereum blocks. This initiative follows a recent decision by Ethereum validators to raise the gas limit from 30 million to 36 million in February. The last adjustment to Ethereum's gas limit occurred in August 2021 during the London hard fork, which doubled the limit from 15 million to 30 million. Feist acknowledged that a rapid increase in the gas limit might stress less-optimized nodes and extend block propagation times. However, he noted that the exponential schedule with gradual increments per epoch provides node operators and developers ample time to adapt and optimize. EIP-9698 represents the Ethereum community's latest effort to enhance scalability at the base layer, following a focus on scaling through layer 2 solutions in recent years. Critics of Ethereum's layer-2 strategy argue that it has fragmented the ecosystem into several siloed chains with limited interoperability, resulting in a suboptimal user experience. Additionally, Ethereum developers are exploring a fourfold increase in the gas limit in the Fusaka hard fork under EIP-9678, which is anticipated to go online in late 2025. Meanwhile, the next major Ethereum upgrade, Pectra, is scheduled for deployment on the mainnet in May 2025.