The Ethereum network is set for another boost in transaction throughput next month, as developers plan to raise Ethereum’s gas limit from 60 million to 80 million in January.
Christine Kim, vice president of the research team at Galaxy Digital, provided a recap of the All Core Developers meeting on Monday, where Nethermind representatives indicated that developers should be ready to proceed with a gas limit increase after the next BPO hard fork on Jan. 7.
However, Barnabas Busa, a developer operations engineer at the Ethereum Foundation, pointed out that two client-level optimizations are necessary before any further increase in the block gas limit—a partial blob response on the execution layer and the max blobs flag on the consensus layer.
Increasing the gas limit will directly enhance the number of transactions and smart contract operations that can be accommodated in each Ethereum block, improving overall throughput while potentially lowering fees.
Although raising Ethereum’s gas limit to 80 million won’t match the speed or lower costs of layer 1s like Solana or Sui, it bolsters Ethereum’s attractiveness as a secure settlement and execution layer without markedly compromising decentralization—arguably its greatest asset over competitors.
Ethereum devs to finalize plans early next year
Participants in the weekly Ethereum All Core Developers meeting will regroup on Jan. 5 to finalize when to increase the gas limit following the second BPO hard fork.
The first BPO hard fork took place on Dec. 9, raising blob capacity by 66%; the anticipated second hard fork on Jan. 7 is expected to increase this by an additional 66%.
Blobs on Ethereum are sizable data segments that store transaction and rollup information offchain, reducing gas costs and enhancing scalability without congesting the network.
Boosting Ethereum’s gas limit has been a key focus this year
The push to increase Ethereum’s gas limit to expand the network’s execution capacity has been a significant priority for developers and researchers this year, with three increases implemented.
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The first increase occurred in early February, escalating it from 30 million to 35 million; the second occurred in July, rising to 45 million; and the third happened in late November, hitting 60 million.
Members of the Ethereum development and research community have shared a collective goal to elevate the network’s gas limit to 180 million by the end of 2026.
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