Ethereum gas limit climbs to 12.5 million Gwei

Ethereum miners raised the network gas limit by 4%, nearing 12.5 million Gwei. Data from Etherscan show this.

The previous significant change in the metric occurred in mid-June, when the limit rose by almost 2 million Gwei. Prior to that it had stayed at 8 million since December 2017.

Source: Etherscan.

On the backdrop of the limit increase, the number of daily transactions in the Ethereum network exceeded 1.26 million, according to BitInfoCharts. This metric came close to its all-time high of 1.35 million set on January 4, 2018.

What is gas? It is the unit of measurement of the computational power required to carry out a transaction or implement a smart contract on the Ethereum network.

What is the gas limit? It is the maximum number of gas units you are willing to spend on a transaction. The higher the limit, the more computations are needed.

How is the fee calculated? The transaction fee is the product of the gas limit and the price of gas in gwei (a millionth of ETH).

What does the rise in the limit mean? It signals higher block throughput. More transactions can fit in a block.

The increase in the gas limit again signals Ethereum’s scaling challenge remains relevant. Last week, the network’s median fee rose to two-year highs at around $0.40. Today, July 28, this figure reached $0.92, according to BitInfoCharts.

Yesterday, July 27, miners’ revenue from Ethereum mining exceeded $3.4 per 100 MH/s. This metric rose 60% over the month, while ETH’s market value rose 40%.

A cryptocurrency pyramid similar to MMM continues to exert substantial load on the network, with participants spending $236 000 in fees over the last month.

Last week Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin acknowledged the problem of rising fees, proposing a radical overhaul of the system for awarding miners.

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