Ethereum Boosts Gas Limit to 60M: What It Means for Throughput and the Fusaka Upgrade

Ethereum just cranked up its block gas limit again, this time from 45 million to 60 million. The stated goal? To unclog the network and bring down transaction costs. Sure, sounds great on paper. But let's dig into the numbers before we start celebrating.

Fusaka: A Real Fix or Just Kicking the Can?

The Numbers Behind the "Fix" First, the facts: validators gave the thumbs-up, Fusaka hard fork is slated for early December, and some audit contest is happening. Okay, good. We’re supposed to believe this is all about making Ethereum smoother, faster, cheaper. Toni Wahrstätter from the Ethereum Foundation even called it the result of a year-long effort. A year? For a 33% increase? Here's the part that gets my attention: scaling networks supposedly hit 31,000 transactions per second recently. Impressive, until you look at the breakdown. Lighter, a zero-knowledge rollup, is doing most of the heavy lifting at 5,455 TPS. Base, Coinbase’s chain, is contributing a measly 137 TPS. So, the main Ethereum chain is still struggling. The increase itself, a 2x jump in gas limit in a single year, raises some eyebrows. Remember EIP-7623? It was supposed to add safeguards. So what changed? Apparently, "multi-client performance optimizations" are the magic bullet. Several months of testnet stability are cited as proof. But testnets are testnets. They don't replicate the chaos of the real world. And this is the part of the report that I find genuinely puzzling. If the network is truly optimized, why the need for constant gas limit hikes? It feels like treating the symptom, not the disease. Are we just kicking the can down the road, delaying a more fundamental fix? What happens when 60 million isn't enough? 80? 100? Where does it end?

Ethereum Scaling: Outsourcing the Problem?

The Layer-2 Mirage The reliance on layer-2 solutions also presents a skewed picture. Sure, Lighter is processing thousands of transactions. But how many users are actually using it? What's the cost of moving assets between layers? These are crucial questions often glossed over in the avalanche of TPS figures. The narrative being pushed is that Ethereum is scaling. But the data suggests a more nuanced reality: Ethereum is *outsourcing* its scaling. It's relying on external networks to handle the load. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but let's not pretend it's a direct improvement to the core Ethereum experience. Vitalik Buterin himself has hinted at future upgrades involving increased gas costs for computationally intensive operations. This suggests even the core team recognizes the current "solution" is incomplete. Why not address this directly instead of applying another band-aid? Is This Just a Delaying Tactic? So, what's the real story here? Is this gas limit increase a genuine step forward, or is it just a way to buy time while the core developers scramble for a more sustainable solution? The numbers don’t lie: the Ethereum mainnet is still struggling, and the reliance on layer-2 solutions is a double-edged sword. This feels like a patch, not a cure. The Illusion of Progress