Challenges in Ethereum’s Block Gas Limit Expansion
Toni Wahrstätter, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, recently discussed the technical challenges surrounding Ethereum’s block gas limit expansion in a post on Dec. 9.
The Debate Over Gas Limit Increase
The Ethereum community is currently debating the possibility of raising the gas limit, a move that could potentially increase network capacity. However, there are concerns about the impact this change could have on network stability and security.
Constraints in Consensus Layer Specifications
Wahrstätter pointed out the limitations set by consensus layer (CL) client specifications, which make it difficult to surpass the current 36 million gas threshold without significant protocol upgrades.
Beyond the Current Threshold
Ethereum’s CL specifications currently enforce a 10 mebibytes (MiB) maximum uncompressed block size to ensure efficient gossip propagation across the network. Increasing the gas limit to 60 million per block would exceed this limit, potentially leading to propagation failures and network destabilization.
Addressing Risks
The restrictions in place are designed to mitigate risks such as denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Larger blocks could overwhelm network nodes and expose vulnerabilities without providing immediate benefits.
Testing and Data Collection
Parithosh Jayanthi, a member of the Ethereum Foundation’s ethPandaOps unit, emphasized the need for developers to prioritize testing and data collection to evaluate the trade-offs of higher gas limits.
Pectra 2 Upgrade
Ethereum developers are working on the Pectra 2 network upgrade to tackle these challenges. This hard fork includes two critical proposals aimed at paving the way for higher gas limits.
Key Proposals
The first proposal, Ethereum Improvement Proposal 7623 (EIP-7623), focuses on reducing worst-case block sizes to mitigate DoS risks and enable safer capacity increases. The second proposal, EIP-7691, increases the target and maximum number of blobs per block to gather empirical data on network performance under higher storage and propagation demands.
By implementing these changes, Pectra 2 will provide valuable insights into the network’s ability to handle larger blocks while maintaining stability.
