In an effort to increase the long-static gas limit on the blockchain network, Ethereum developers have launched a new project, claiming that this modification will allow Ethereum to grow.
TakeAway Points:
- Ethereum developers have started a new project called Pump the Gas.
- The new project is already gaining ground as users, stakeholders, and DeFi investors on X have already begun to show some support for the pump the gas hashtags.
- However, concerns have been raised that raising the gas limit to 40 million will cut Ethereum’s layer-1 transaction fees by around 15 to 33%.
Pump the Gas Project
A new website named “Pump the Gas” was introduced on March 20 by Eric Connor, former MakerDAO head of smart contracts Mariano Conti, and core Ethereum developer. The service aims to minimise layer 1 transaction fees by raising the Ethereum gas cap from 30 million to 40 million.
“This can result in a 15% to 33% reduction in layer-1 transaction fees. We are calling on solo stakeholders, client teams, pools, and community members to help.” Connor said in a March 19 post on X.
Gaining Grounds
Users, stakers, and DeFi investors on X have already begun to show some support for the pumpthegas hashtag. Conti further noted that on March 20, a Rocket Pool validator had suggested a barrier with a $40 million petrol restriction.
Over the past several months, there has been an increasing push to raise the Ethereum gas limit. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum proposed in January raising the gas cap to $40 million from $30 million, which has been in place since August 2021.
In response, Jesse Pollak, a contributor to Base, declared that he “highly supports” raising the Ethereum gas limit to 40 or 45 million. “We have the network headroom, which will be beneficial for all parties,” he added.
Ethereum Gas Limit
The Ethereum gas limit is the maximum amount of gas used to carry out transactions or smart contracts in each block. The $3,469 (ETH) petrol price is needed to carry out a transaction or run a smart contract on the network.
According to the website, contracts have a gas limit that cannot be exceeded. While the contract is being executed, each operation has a predetermined gas cost. By doing this, malevolent contracts are kept from overwhelming the network with endless cycles or high resource usage.
“Raising the gas block limit by 33% gives Layer 1 Ethereum the ability to process 33% more transaction load in a day,” it stated.
It was also noted that although layer-1 transaction fees are not significantly decreased by data blobs, which were included in the Dencun upgrade with EIP-4844, they do help. “A combination of blobs and gas limit increases can help scale both L1 and L2 Ethereum,” it added.
Raised Concerns
However, not everyone supports this network modification. Evan Van Ness, a venture investor and Ethereum advocate, said, “I’m not in favour of raising the mainnet gas limit today, as EIP-4844 just raised the block size,” in a post on X.
The projected rise has raised concerns from Ethereum developers Marius van der Wijden and others, who claim it will expand the blockchain state—which stores data related to smart contracts and account balances—into larger proportions.
“Size is not the issue… Accessing and modifying it will become slower and slower… no concrete solutions yet for state growth,” he said.
However, raising the gas limit has additional drawbacks, such as heavier hardware loads and a higher chance of network spam and attacks.
