Ethereum Validators Endorse Gas Limit Increase

A majority of Ethereum validators have backed an increase in the network’s gas limit—the maximum amount that can be used for transactions in a single block.

According to Gaslimit.pics, 52.3% of network participants are in favor. This exceeds the minimum threshold of 50% required to scale the layer-one blockchain without making radical changes.

Validators can configure their nodes to signal support for the increase. This allows for enhanced network performance without the need for a hard fork.

The average gas limit in Ethereum has remained around 30 million since August 2021, when it was raised from 15 million.

The X-account under the nickname dataalways.eth noted that the figure already exceeds 32 million.

Ethereum’s gas limit is already up above 32 million. https://t.co/4aJmKVOR2w pic.twitter.com/RODCBf4KFZ

— dataalways.eth (@Data_Always) February 4, 2025

Former ConsenSys COO Evan Van Ness stated that this is the first gas limit increase since the transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), which took place during The Merge update in September 2022.

49.5% of Ethereum blocks are signalling for a gas limit increase

This will be the first increase under proof of stake. Because PoS is so much more decentralized than obsolete tech like PoW, it took longer to coordinate

Who will be the hero to put us over the top? pic.twitter.com/bZclQ301Vf

— Evan Van Ness ? (@evan_van_ness) February 4, 2025

“Because PoS is so much more decentralized than obsolete technology like Proof-of-Work, the coordination process took longer,” he stated.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced active preparations for the Pectra upgrade, expected in March.

L1 is scaling.

A big shoutout to all the developers working on EIP-4444 (history expiry), statelessness (see the new binary tree EIP! https://t.co/ajKpF66BKw ), client efficiency upgrades, and other features that will make higher L1 gas limits decentralization-friendly. https://t.co/DNsHPAhiia

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 4, 2025

As part of the update, the target volume of BLOB objects will increase from three to six, enhancing L2 performance.

According to Buterin, the decision will also be made through staker voting “similar to the gas limit change mechanism” and will allow the limit to increase “in line with technological improvements without waiting for hard forks.”

Some developers have previously expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of the Pump The Gas initiative. According to some experts, a sharp increase in the indicator could threaten the blockchain’s stability and security.

On December 9, developer Tony Warshtetter noted that raising the value to 60 million could lead to propagation failures, validator slot misses, and other issues.

Back in September 2022, Buterin suggested changing the network’s gas limit to increase Ethereum’s throughput.