Ethereum performance greatly improved, Gas Limit may be raised again

Recently, the performance of the Ethereum network has been continuously optimized, with the number of transactions per second (TPS) increasing from 15 in the past to about 60, a fourfold growth. This significant improvement is mainly attributed to the adjustment of the Gas Limit, which has been raised from a previous cap of 15 million to 36 million.

Currently, Ethereum is considering raising the Gas Limit to 60 million. The Gas Limit refers to the maximum amount of Gas that can be accommodated in each block. Increasing this limit can directly enhance the network's ability to process transactions, thereby improving network speed.

It is worth noting that adjusting the Gas Limit does not require a hard fork. This is because the Gas Limit is a dynamic parameter in Ethereum, and PoS nodes can make fine-tuning adjustments within the existing protocol rules. The protocol allows each new block producer to adjust the Gas Limit within a range of ±1/1024 relative to the parent block, which is itself a part of the consensus mechanism.

Currently, about 15% of validators have chosen to support a setting of 60 million Gas. However, increasing the Gas Limit does not mean that PoS nodes can earn more rewards. In fact, due to enhanced network processing capacity and reduced transaction congestion, validators may see a decrease in income due to lower competition pressure for tips.

The community has also proposed a more controversial proposal, EIP-9698, which suggests increasing the Gas Limit from 36 million to 3.6 billion over the next four years, aiming to raise Ethereum's TPS to around 2000. However, this proposal may be too radical, as the Ethereum network has over 1 million active validators and needs to consider a wide range of participants.

According to research by ethpandaops, after the Gas Limit is raised to 60 million, approximately 90% of blocks can be discovered within 1016 milliseconds for the first time. Although there is a slight increase in block propagation delay, it is still within an acceptable range. However, based on network propagation limitations, the theoretical upper limit of Gas Limit under the current architecture is about 150 million.

In the future, if Ethereum implements a "large node/small node" architecture, for example, allowing nodes that stake 2048 ETH to handle higher loads and 32 ETH nodes to process smaller blocks, it may create conditions for further scaling.

Overall, the Ethereum network is becoming faster, more efficient, and more user-friendly. This is reflected not only in the decrease in Gas Price but also in the ongoing optimization and improvement of the network itself.