Nethermind Developer Proposes Ethereum Performance Boost

Benjamin Adams, a developer at Nethermind, has proposed EIP-7781, which suggests reducing Ethereum’s slot time from 12 to eight seconds.

This change aims to accelerate block creation and enhance the network’s overall efficiency.

The developer estimates that the blockchain’s throughput could increase by 33% without raising the number of BLOB objects.

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake has endorsed Adams’ idea. He noted that the proposal is akin to increasing the gas limit to 45 million and the number of BLOBs per block to nine. Among other benefits, he highlighted:

• an approximately 1.22 times increase in the efficiency of decentralized exchanges like Uniswap v3;
• an annual saving of around $100 million on arbitrage between CEX and DEX;
• a one-third reduction in the time taken for the network to process first-layer smart contracts;
• smoothing peak block verification loads at the execution layer.

“If the project is approved, it would be a huge first step in improving Ethereum’s performance,” wrote Web3 researcher known as Cygaar.

There’s a new EIP to increase Ethereum’s throughput by 50%.

— 12 second block times -> 8 seconds
— 6 data blobs per block -> 9 blobs per block
— DEXes become around 1.22x more efficient

If approved, this would be a huge first step in improving Ethereum L1’s performance. pic.twitter.com/MkX5gbiBFR

— cygaar (@0xCygaar) October 6, 2024

Among the drawbacks, Drake mentioned the tightening of timings. Commentators also questioned what hardware requirements Adams’ EIP would impose on validators.

Adam Cochran, a partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, also highlighted technical aspects.

Honestly this seems reasonable in terms of bandwidth on solo stakers too as long as the gas limit per block stays the same.

Would want to see some tests on I/O hardware and staker return ping times to make sure it doesn’t cut off some home stakers but, seems like it should be…

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) October 6, 2024

“I would like to see specific tests on I/O hardware and staker return ping times to ensure it doesn’t exclude some home validators. But it seems like it should be within the norm for most,” the expert emphasized.

Earlier, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin suggested lowering solo staking requirements to strengthen the network’s decentralization.