Buterin Calls For Higher Ethereum Gas Limit To Ensure Network Stability

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is pushing for an increase in Ethereum’s layer-1 (L1) gas limit, arguing that the network still needs more base-layer capacity despite its rollup-centric roadmap.

In a blog post, he highlighted the importance of a stronger L1 for censorship resistance, interoperability, and security functions.

Ethereum recently raised its gas limit from 30 million to 36 million, allowing for more transactions per block. However, Buterin believes this is not enough. While L1 expansions make running full nodes more demanding to reduce decentralization, he stressed that a higher gas limit is crucial to ensuring users can bypass censorship and execute transactions even if an L2 censors a large number of users.

Buterin pointed out that Ethereum’s current capacity may not be sufficient in the event of an L2 collapse, particularly if a high-profile rollup with millions of users fails. His rough estimates suggest that without optimizations, Ethereum may need to scale by up to 9x to handle large-scale withdrawals efficiently.

He also noted that L2 interoperability issues remain a challenge, especially for low-volume assets and NFTs, which often require routing through L1. Based on his calculations, Ethereum’s L1 may need to scale 5.5x to make these transfers cost-effective.

Ethereum Pectra upgrade scheduled for April

Another key issue is ERC-20 token issuance on L2s. Buterin warned that if an L2 undergoes a hostile governance upgrade, it could mint an unlimited number of tokens, affecting the broader Ethereum ecosystem. Keeping token issuance on L1 could mitigate this risk.

Ethereum’s next major upgrade, Pectra, is expected to go live on April 8. The update will increase the number of “blobs” per block from three to six, improving data availability for L2s and enhancing scalability.

Additionally, Ethereum validators will be able to vote on gas limit adjustments, similar to the current staker-voted mechanism.

Despite the focus on rollups, Ethereum’s L1 fee revenue recently dropped below $1 million for the first time since September, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of the network’s security budget.