EIP-7935 Default gas limit raised to 60M (Set default gas limit to 60M)
Final · Scaling & data · EIP status Final · created 2025-04-22
Recommends that execution layer clients raise the gas limit value in their default configuration from 36M to 60M. This is an informational proposal to apply the change in time for the Fusaka hard fork launch.
Why it is needed
The amount of work a single Ethereum block can hold is determined by the gas limit. At the time this proposal was made, the mainnet gas limit was 36M. There was strong interest in the fact that raising this limit alone, without building any new feature, could increase L1 (the Ethereum main chain) throughput. However, at gas limits higher than what mainnet currently uses, bugs in client software could surface. Finding and fixing such bugs requires client developers to spend time on testing and fixes. In the past, it was also not easy for multiple execution layer clients to coordinate raising their default gas limit values together. So the core of this proposal is to publicly commit to the new value by tying it to a hard fork EIP.
What changes
Today
- Mainnet's gas limit is 36M
- The default gas limit value was managed differently by each client, making it hard to coordinate raising it together
- Client bugs that could arise at a higher gas limit had not been systematically checked
After EIP-7935
- All execution layer clients generate a gas limit of 60M in their default configuration
- The gas limit increase is publicly committed by tying it to the Fusaka hard fork schedule
- The limit is raised gradually after safety is confirmed through devnet testing
Who is affected
- Client teams: The default configuration's gas limit value must be changed to 60M, and bugs that surface at the higher limit must be tested and fixed.
- Users and app developers: Processing capacity per block increases. Existing contracts are not broken by the higher limit.
- Validators and node operators: Blocks may grow larger, so safety is confirmed by monitoring network and node health on devnets.
In depth
A default configuration change, not a protocol rule
This EIP's type is Informational. It is not a consensus rule enforcing the gas limit, but a recommendation that execution layer clients change the gas limit value generated in their own default configuration to 60M. It specifies that although the configuration format differs between clients, they should all produce the same default value. The gas limit itself remains a value validators can adjust as before; this proposal changes the starting default value.
Why tie it to a hard fork
The original Rationale states that execution layer clients previously had difficulty coordinating updates to the default gas limit value. It therefore proposes tying the new value to a hard fork release. The Motivation section explains that since client bugs are expected to be found at gas limits higher than mainnet's, it makes sense to commit to the change via a hard fork EIP to secure client developer time for testing and fixes. The target timing is by the Fusaka launch.
Backward compatibility and coordination with the 30M transaction limit
A higher gas limit does not break existing contracts. However, the original text notes that once the limit rises, individual transactions could exceed the separately proposed 30M transaction gas limit, so the rollout schedules of both EIPs need to be coordinated. This means the block-wide limit (60M) and the per-transaction cap (30M) must be aligned together.
Safety verification: full-combination devnet testing
A devnet running every combination of EL and CL clients is set up to test whether a 60M gas limit is safe. Synthetic transactions are generated until blocks are full, while network and node health are monitored. If a bug is found, the client team patches it and the process restarts from the beginning. If everything looks normal, the gas limit is raised incrementally.
Worst-case block size and the 150M boundary
The original text states that adversarial block construction aimed at maximizing worst-case block size has already been studied and is not a problem below 150M gas. This is because the current worst-case block size of 1.79 MiB reaches the consensus layer's gossip limit of 10MiB around the 150M mark. 60M is comfortably below this boundary. This EIP's status is finalized as Final.