"Vitalik Pushes for Higher Ethereum Gas Limit Despite Concerns"

Coin WorldFriday, Feb 14, 2025 9:38 am ET
1min read

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has argued for further increasing the network's gas limit, despite a recent agreement to raise it from 30 million to 36 million. In a Feb. 14 blog post, Buterin presented his case for higher layer-1 (L1) capacity, even as Ethereum follows a rollup-centric roadmap.

Buterin acknowledged that increasing the gas limit allows more transactions per block but also accelerates Ethereum's state growth, making it more demanding to run a full node over time. He warned that if resource requirements become too high, fewer individuals may operate their own nodes, leading to greater reliance on centralized node providers and weakening Ethereum's decentralization.

However, Buterin argued that increasing L1 gas limits remains crucial for censorship resistance, L2 interoperability, and key security functions. He noted that the practical value of the censorship resistance guarantee is dependent on L1 fees being sufficiently low and L1 having enough space for users to send bypass transactions even if an L2 censors a large number of users en masse.

Buterin highlighted L1's role as a safety net in case of L2 failures, warning that Ethereum's current capacity may be insufficient to handle mass withdrawals if a high-profile L2 with millions of users collapses. Using rough calculations, he estimated that, without optimizations, Ethereum might need to scale several times over — potentially close to 9x — to efficiently accommodate large-scale exits.

Additionally, Buterin pointed out interoperability constraints between L2s, explaining that low-volume assets and NFTs often require routing through L1, making transfers expensive under current limits. He estimated that Ethereum's L1 capacity may need to scale by approximately 5.5x to bring these costs down to an acceptable level.

Buterin also raised a security concern regarding ERC-20 token issuance on L2s. If an L2 undergoes a hostile governance upgrade, it could mint an unlimited number of tokens, potentially impacting the broader ecosystem. By keeping ERC-20 issuance on L1, projects can limit the risk of L2-based exploits and contain potential damage.

Ethereum has long struggled with high gas fees and network congestion, making transactions expensive and inefficient for traders. To address this, the network adopted a rollup-centric roadmap, leading to the rise

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