Ethereum developers are claiming that increasing the gas limit to 40 million will reduce layer-1 transaction fees on Ethereum by 15-33%.
In an effort to boost Ethereum’s growth, Ethereum developers launched a new project. That proposes increasing the long-static gas limit on the blockchain network. They claim this modification will allow Ethereum to grow.
To lower layer 1 transaction costs, Eric Connor (main Ethereum developer) and Mariano Conti (former head of smart contracts at MakerDAO) introduced a new website called “pump the gas” on March 20th. The website’s goal is to raise the Ethereum gas cap from 30 million to 40 million.
In a March 19th post, Connor stated that this change “can result in a 15% to 33% reduction in layer-1 transaction fees.” He continued by calling on solo stakers, client teams, pools, and community members to help.
Users, stakers, and DeFi investors on X have already shown support for the #pumpthegas hashtag. Conti further noted that on March 20th, a Rocket Pool validator proposed a block with a 40 million gas restriction.
Growing Support for Raising Ethereum Gas Limit
A push to raise Ethereum’s gas limit has grown in recent months. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder, proposed a January increase from 30 million to 40 million (current limit since August 2021). Jesse Pollak, a Base contributor, strongly supports this, suggesting a 40-45 million increase. He argues it benefits all and the network has capacity. (Gas limit: maximum gas per block for transactions/smart contracts. Gas is the ETH fee).
According to the website, contracts have a gas limit that cannot be exceeded while the contract is being executed, and each operation has a predetermined gas cost. By doing this. Malevolent contracts are kept from overwhelming the network with endless cycles or high resource usage.
According to the statement, “Level 1 Ethereum can process 33% more transactions in a day by raising the gas block limit by 33%.”
Furthermore, it said that although layer-1 transaction fees are not significantly decreased by data blobs, which were included in the Dencun upgrade with EIP-4844, they do help. “Gas limit increases and blobs can help scale both L1 and L2 Ethereum,” it continued.
Not everyone, though, supports this network modification. “I’m not in favor of raising mainnet gas limit today as EIP-4844 just raised the block size,” stated venture investor and Ethereum supporter Evan Van Ness in a post on X.
Ethereum engineer alarmed by gas limit hike in January. He said it would bloat the blockchain state and slow things down, with no solutions for state growth available. Raising the gas limit also has other risks, like heavier hardware demands and increased spam.
