The Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist has proposed a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) that could potentially scale the Ethereum mainnet’s gas limit by 100 times, allowing it to reach 2,000 transactions per second. The proposal, known as EIP-9698, introduces a deterministic gas limit growth schedule that would gradually increase the gas limit by a factor of 10 over two years, with a final tenfold increase. This proposal aims to align with expected advancements in hardware and protocol efficiency. If implemented, Ethereum could better compete with other blockchains like Solana, which currently processes a high number of transactions per second. The EIP would expand the current gas limit from 36 million to 3.6 billion, potentially accommodating around 6,000 transactions in Ethereum blocks. Feist’s proposal comes after Ethereum validators agreed to raise the gas limit from 30 million to 36 million earlier this year. The proposal marks a shift towards boosting scalability at the base layer of Ethereum, following years of focus on layer 2 solutions. Critics of Ethereum’s layer-2 strategy argue that it has fragmented the ecosystem and reduced interoperability. Additionally, Ethereum developers are exploring a fourfold increase in Ethereum’s gas limit in the upcoming Fusaka hard fork under EIP-9678. The Fusaka hard fork is expected to launch in late 2025, while the Pectra upgrade is scheduled for May.