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Ethereum has recently faced severe external doubts, seemingly falling behind in competition with other application public chains. However, Dankrad Feist, a senior researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, has proposed an ambitious performance expansion plan called "EIP-9698". The proposal hopes to gradually increase the Gas limit of the Ethereum mainnet by 100 times within the next four years, from the current 36 million to 3.6 billion. If this proposal is successfully implemented, it could theoretically improve Ethereum's Layer 1 (L1) transaction processing capacity to 2,000 transactions per second (TPS), which is about twice the daily average TPS of its current competitor Solana, around 1,000, sparking heated discussion in the Ethereum community.
Ethereum Returns to Layer 1 Expansion
For a long time, Ethereum has mainly relied on Layer 2 solutions to address scalability challenges, such as Rollups technology. The EIP-9698 proposal indicates the possibility of Ethereum rebalancing its expansion route and seeking a balanced development path that emphasizes both L1 and L2.
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According to the proposal, EIP-9698 plans to incrementally increase the Gas limit in phases. It is expected to increase the Gas limit 10 times in the first two years, and then another 10 times in the following two years, ultimately achieving a total 100-fold growth within four years. This gradual adjustment will be implemented through a client voting mechanism, giving network participants ample time to adapt to changes and reduce potential risks.
The significant increase in Gas limit will bring multiple benefits to Ethereum. The most direct impact is a substantial increase in the number of transactions that can be accommodated in each block, theoretically allowing about 6,000 transactions per block. This is expected to significantly alleviate network congestion and consequently reduce user transaction fees (Gas Fee). Additionally, the theoretical transaction processing capacity per second could reach 2,000 TPS, which, while still different from some competitors' claimed theoretical peak values, can significantly narrow the gap in actual processing capacity (for example, Solana's observed TPS is usually between 800-1,050).
Expansion Challenges
Significantly increasing the Gas limit also brings non-negligible technical challenges. First, the pressure on current node operators will increase significantly, as larger blocks require more powerful computer hardware to process and store, potentially raising the threshold for running full nodes and posing a potential challenge to Ethereum's decentralization. Secondly, the increase in block size may lead to longer block propagation times in the network, affecting network stability and security. State growth, execution delays, and other issues also require in-depth research and resolution.
The EIP-9698 proposal is closely related to Ethereum's existing technological roadmap and needs to be coordinated with upcoming upgrades (such as the expected Fusaka hard fork in late 2025 and the Pectra upgrade in May 2025). This proposal reflects the Ethereum development community's renewed focus on base layer expansion and may guide Ethereum towards a more balanced expansion path where L1 and L2 work together to better meet the growing demands of decentralized applications.
Overall, the EIP-9698 proposal is a bold and promising plan. If technical challenges can be overcome and successfully implemented, it will have a profound impact on Ethereum's performance and ecosystem, particularly in handling high transaction volumes and reducing user costs.
The proposal has also sparked a new round of community discussions about how to best balance scalability, decentralization, and security. Whether Ethereum can maintain its core values and consolidate its leading position while advancing base layer expansion remains to be seen.
