Ethereum stalwarts make push to raise gas limit, aiming for 15-33% reduction in fees

Ethereum ETH -0.24% Layer 2 transaction fees have dropped massively since the introduction of blobs and some Ethereum community members want to see further gains on the mainnet itself.

Ethereum angel investor Eric Conner and Mariano Conti, former head of smart contracts at MakerDAO, are pushing for an increase in the gas limit on Ethereum. They say it could reduce transaction fees by 15-33%.

"We are calling on solo stakers, client teams, pools and community members to help," Conner posted on X. "If you are a staker, it's as simple as setting flags in your execution and consensus clients."

Conner posted a link to a website called "Pump The Gas," which is advocating for an increase in the Ethereum gas limit from 30 million to 40 million. The website contains information on how solo stakers can increase the gas limit today.

"After discussion with multiple community stakeholders, this feels like a reasonable amount to raise the limit without putting the network at risk," the website says. "Raising the gas block limit 33% gives Layer 1 Ethereum the ability to process 33% more transaction load in a day. This has the potential to lower gas fees on L1."

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin suggested this level of increase in an Ask-Me-Anything session on Reddit in January. At the time, Jesse Pollak, Coinbase protocols lead, also expressed strong support for the change.

However, the proposal has been met with some skepticism. "This will not reduce tx fees nor really staker revenue (priority fees stay low)," said Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave Chan Initiative, on X. "Will just add bloat and maybe more burned ETH." That said, he said he would support the idea.