Ethereum Gas Limit Increase

Ethereum recently reached consensus to increase its network’s gas limit, with 50% of validators supporting this change aimed at enhancing scalability.

The gas limit is a vital metric that determines the network’s transaction capacity. Previously set at 30 million, it has now surpassed the 31 million mark.

For the gas limit adjustment to take effect, over half of the validators had to approve it, a milestone reached yesterday. With more than 50% signaling support, the block gas limit automatically updated without a hard fork.

This marks the first adjustment under Ethereum’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. The last change occurred in 2021, when the gas limit doubled from 15 million to 30 million gas units.

In Ethereum, gas serves as the basic unit to quantify the computational effort required for transactions or smart contracts. The gas limit indicates the maximum gas consumption permitted for all transactions within a single block.

Recent data from gas limit.pics show the average gas limit over the past 24 hours was 31.5 million gas units, with expectations to reach a maximum capacity of 36 million gas units.

Despite recent scalability advancements from the Dencun upgrade and proto-dank sharding, raising the gas limit was essential for further network enhancement.