Vitalik Buterin’s New Proposal Draws Criticism From Ethereum Devs, Here’s What It Is

Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin recently unveiled a new plan to raise ETH’s gas limit. The proposal which aims to introduce substantial solutions to challenges within the ecosystem has been met with criticism from ETH developers.

Ethereum Developers Oppose Gas Limit Increase

Buterin stirred controversy on January 11, by advocating for a 33% increase in Ethereum’s gas limit. Subsequently, the proposal set off heated debates within the ETH community as many developers expressed opposing views to the potential change.

Ethereum’s core developer and team lead, Peter Szilagyi recently shared his views on the proposed gas limit increase via X (formerly Twitter). 

Posing the question, “What problem does increasing the gas limit solve?” Slilagyi highlighted the major drawbacks associated with raising Ethereum’s gas limit. The ETH developer stated that increasing gas limits would enlarge the state size, and escalate risks of the Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. 

Similarly, Ethereum developer, Marius Van der Wijden has expressed his concerns in a blog post explaining “why increasing the gas limit is difficult.”

In 2021, Wijden published an article on LinkedIn, describing the dangers of raising Ethereum’s gas limits. His recent blog post also highlights similar concerns and outlines the risks and worst-case scenarios associated with the change. 

According to the Ethereum developer’s report, elevating ETH’s gas limit could increase missed block rates. Additionally, it could lead to an inflated state size, potentially resulting in slow accessibility and modification of data. 

He revealed that the current space size required by Ethereum is roughly 267GB and an increase in gas limits would lead to a substantial expansion in state size. This poses a challenge as there are no definite methods to mitigate the growing state. 

Wijden pointed out additional risks including prolonged synchronization times and difficulties in building and optimizing a new Execution Layer (EL) client. Regarding worse-case scenarios, the developer discussed adverse effects on ETH’s proof size and instabilities in running clients. 

ETH Developer Proposes Alternative Solution 

In his blog post, Wijdgen disclosed several alternative solutions to address the challenge of increasing ETH’s gas limits. The Ethereum developer suggested the adoption of regenesis as a short-term solution to manage history growth. 

He also proposed delaying a gas limit increase until the fall out of the EIP-4844, an Ethereum upgrade currently undergoing testing to enhance the storage capacity. Regarding an inflated state size, Wijden revealed that there were no concrete solutions presently available to address the problem.

Concluding his report, the developer advised community members to exercise caution when considering an increase in Ethereum’s gas limits. Additionally, he stressed the importance of understanding the long-term and short-term effects associated with the changes in ETH gas limits.