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The Ethereum All-Core Devs (ACD) held its final call for 2024 yesterday, which provided key updates on plans to lift the gas limit and progress towards the Pectra upgrade. Discussions revealed the community's ongoing efforts to balance implementation layer changes, consensus layer coordination and EIP implementation, reflecting Ethereum's commitment to "universal-based" iterative improvement.
In a bold but calculated move, Ethereum developers are preparing to increase the gas limit, Mirroring Up 20% in more than three years. This time, the proposed increase aims for 36 million gas, although significant technical constraints are dampening enthusiasm for higher limits. The primary constraint is the "GOSSIP_MAX_SIZE" of the consensus layer, which limits the transmission of a validator block to 10MB, which is approximately 10.48MB.
on Mekong network test — used in testing the Pectra fork — the gas limit has already risen to 36 million, providing a stable testing ground for network performance within the higher limits.
While the Mekong testnet is working steadily with these changes, developers have warned against increasing the gas limit in the mainnet beyond 40 million without addressing the Gossip Layer limitations. Validator customers, such as Prysm, face challenges in dynamically adjusting gas limits, which underscores the need for further development.
An increase in the gas limit does not need to wait for a hard fork, but can be signaled by validators to support such a change. So far only 16.8% I did itBut the trend is up. Campaigns like PumpTheGas.org aim to build more momentum.
the Promotion of bacteria It remains a focus of Ethereum's 2025 roadmap. It is on track for a Q1 release, with developers targeting a Devnet-5 launch by the end of the year. Changes discussed on the call include replacing EIP-7742 with EIP-7840 to provide more flexibility in managing “large binary data numbers” – a key element for scaling Ethereum and supporting Layer 2 compilations.
By allowing developers to independently set the maximum number of target blobs, the network can balance scalability (by allowing more blobs) with stability (by maintaining operational safety limits). This separation makes it easier to optimize block capacity without overloading the network.
In addition, EIP-2537 focuses on gas repricing Bureau of Labor Statistics (Boneh-Lynn-Shacham) Pre-translation operations, which are essential for cryptographic calculations in Ethereum. The proposal adjusts gas costs for specific calculations, ensuring that resource-intensive tasks are priced fairly while removing inefficiencies such as redundant operations. These updates improve network efficiency, improve resource utilization, and improve cost fairness for developers.
The EVM Resource Pricing Working Group will be launched in January. This group will coordinate gas cost calculations across different processes, with the aim of improving efficiency and fairness in Ethereum's fee structure.
EIP-4444, which schedules a May 1, 2025 pre-merger rollout, requires additional testing to finalize.
The call also stressed the need for clearer requirements for the validation node, as developers seek community feedback. Another proposal to redefine “Meta” EIPs as process-related only may simplify hardfork management.
Ethereum's intentional and collaborative approach to development was evident throughout the discussions. The Pectra upgrade and proposed gas limit increase reflect the network's ambition to expand its technical capabilities while prioritizing stability.
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