Ethereum Gas Fee Plummets to 1.005 Gwei as Network Scales

Ethereum Gas Fee Continues to Decrease, Now at 1.005 Gwei

Ethereum's gas fee has continued its downward trend, now standing at 1.005 Gwei. This decrease comes as validators on the network have surpassed the 52% support threshold for increasing the gas limit without a hard fork. The gas limit, which has hovered around 30 million since 2021, is now creeping up past 33 million, according to Blockscout data.

Proponents of the gas limit increase, such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, emphasize the need for scalability. Buterin mentioned the upcoming Pectra fork in March, which will double Ethereum's layer-2 blob target and use a similar staker-vote mechanism. Advocates argue that more capacity is crucial for innovation. Developer Justin Drake even posted that he had already set his validator for a 36 million gas limit.

However, critics, including Ethereum Foundation's Toni Wahrstätter, caution that pushing the limit too high could destabilize the network, leading to validator failures. The "Pump The Gas" initiative acknowledges these risks but supports incremental increases over time.

With validators now in agreement, Ethereum's next growth phase seems locked and loaded. At the time of writing, the gas fee stood at 1.005 Gwei.