Daniel Walker
Ethereum researcher Dankrad Feist has put forward a bold new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP-9698) that could dramatically expand the network’s capacity. Published on Sunday, the proposal suggests gradually increasing Ethereumโs gas limit by 100 times over the next four years through an automated, exponential growth model.
Under this plan, Ethereum clients would vote to raise the gas limit according to a deterministic schedule, with a tenfold increase every two years (specifically, every 164,250 epochs). The process would begin in June 2025, setting Ethereum on a path to move from a gas limit of 36 million to an astonishing 3.6 billion.
According to Feist,
โA predictable, exponential gas limit growth as a client default encourages sustainable, transparent network scaling, matching hardware and protocol advancements.โ
What This Means for Ethereumโs Performance
If implemented successfully, the proposal could allow Ethereum to handle up to 2,000 transactions per second (TPS), noted Ethereum developer Fabrice Cheng on X. This would mark a significant leap from Ethereumโs current 15โ30 TPS capacity at Layer 1.
Feist acknowledges potential hurdles, including increased strain on less-optimized nodes and longer block propagation times. However, he believes that the gradual rollout would provide node operators and developers ample time to upgrade and optimize their systems accordingly.
Ethereum’s Gas Limit Evolution: A Look Back
The gas limit, which measures the total computational work that can fit into a single block, plays a critical role in Ethereumโs scalability. Since Ethereumโs launch in 2015, the gas limit has evolved significantly:
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2015: 5,000 gas per block
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2021: ~15 million gas
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2022 (“The Merge”): Stabilized around 30 million gas
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Early 2025: Raised to 36 million gas
Expanding the gas limit enables the network to process more transactions and run more complex smart contracts within each block.
Context: Scaling Challenges and Roadmap Debates
Ethereum has long faced criticism over its scalability limitations. Its Layer 1 handles far fewer transactions per second compared to rivals like Solana (65,000 TPS) or newer blockchains such as Aptos and Sui.
Although Ethereumโs fees have dropped significantly โ now hovering around 1โ2 gwei โ thanks to innovations like proto-danksharding (EIP-4844) and a broader move to Layer 2 (L2) solutions, questions about Layer 1 capacity persist.
Ethereumโs co-founder Vitalik Buterin has championed a rollup-centric future, where L2 networks like Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, and zkSync handle most of the transaction load, while Ethereum mainnet remains focused on security and data availability.
Yet critics argue that relying heavily on Layer 2s adds complexity and potential centralization risks, as many rollups use centralized sequencers.
Boosting the mainnetโs gas limit could provide Ethereum with native scalability advantages, reducing reliance on external L2 ecosystems and helping it better compete with high-throughput chains.
Future Outlook
Feistโs EIP-9698 comes on the heels of another proposal (EIP-7935) that suggests raising Ethereumโs gas limit to 150 million by the upcoming Fusaka hard fork later this year. Together, these initiatives signal growing momentum to enhance Ethereumโs base layer throughput without compromising its decentralization and security principles.
As Ethereum continues to evolve, the debate over how to balance scalability, decentralization, and security remains at the heart of its development journey.
