Ethereum (ETH) Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist has introduced a transformative proposal, Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP-9698), aimed at scaling the mainnet by exponentially increasing its gas limit. 

The proposal suggests a 100-fold increase in the gas limit over four years. This would potentially elevate Ethereum’s transaction throughput to 2,000 transactions per second (TPS).

For context, Ethereum’s gas limit currently stands at 36 million, according to YCharts data. This supports a modest 14-20 TPS, with a theoretical maximum of 119 TPS. In contrast, competitors like Solana (SOL) achieve 800 to over 1000 TPS. Moreover, theoretically, Solana can reach a maximum of 65,000 TPS.

EIP-9698 proposes raising the gas limit to 3.6 billion, enabling blocks to accommodate approximately 6,000 transactions. To achieve this, Feist introduces a “deterministic gas limit growth plan,” from epoch 369017 (around June 1).

This is a structured plan to gradually increase Ethereum’s gas limit predictably, based on client-side defaults. 

“Ethereum clients will vote to increase the gas limit according to an exponential schedule unless explicitly configured otherwise by the user,” Feist noted.

The gas limit will increase at each beacon chain epoch, with a factor-of-10 increase occurring approximately every 164,250 epochs (around 2 years). This means the gas limit will grow significantly over time, giving the network more capacity. The increases will continue for 4 years. 

This approach ensures a deterministic, manageable, and scalable way to adjust the network’s capacity as demand grows. In theory, if the gas limit increases 100 times, Ethereum’s TPS could increase to 2,000 transactions.

“The current gas limit mechanism relies on miner/operator voting, which lacks coordination and predictability. While flexible, this approach can lead to stagnation or overly cautious increases. By introducing a predictable exponential growth pattern as a client default, this EIP encourages a sustainable and transparent gas limit trajectory, aligned with expected advancements in hardware and protocol efficiency,” Feist wrote.

The researcher explained that the proposed change is non-consensus and fully backward compatible. This ensures that clients who do not implement the EIP will continue operating as previously. 

The only difference will be a shift in the default behavior. Additionally, manual configuration options will still be available for users who wish to adjust settings. Regarding security, Feist highlighted that a rapid increase in the gas limit could strain less-optimized nodes and lead to slower block propagation.

“However, the exponential schedule with very gradual increments per epoch gives node operators and developers ample time to adapt and optimize,” he added.

If adopted, EIP-9698 could position Ethereum as a stronger competitor in the blockchain space, closing the throughput gap with rival networks. The proposal follows the Ethereum co-founder’s earlier ‘radical’ suggestion of replacing Ethereum’s EVM with RISC-V to address long-term scalability challenges.

Meanwhile, the Pectra upgrade will go live next week. This upgrade enhances Ethereum’s scalability by increasing blob throughput, reducing Layer 1 fees, improving validator flexibility, and optimizing data storage. These changes boost Layer 2 transaction efficiency, promote validator participation, and support broader network adoption and scaling.