Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, along with researcher Toni Wahrstätter, has proposed a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP-7983) to introduce a protocol-level cap on transaction gas usage. The aim is to bolster network security and improve overall performance. The proposal suggests setting a maximum gas limit of 16.77 million (2²⁴) for individual transactions.

The current Ethereum architecture allows a single transaction to theoretically consume an entire block's gas limit, which poses a risk of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks and can lead to unpredictable network behavior. EIP-7983 seeks to distribute gas consumption more evenly by capping individual transactions, thereby reducing the likelihood of single transactions overwhelming block capacity. Transactions exceeding the 16.77 million gas limit would be rejected during block validation, preventing their inclusion in new blocks or entry into the network. This cap operates independently of the overall block gas limit, which miners and validators can still adjust within existing consensus rules.

Buterin and Wahrstätter selected 16.77 million as the cap to strike a balance between complexity and performance. They argue that this value accommodates current advanced DeFi use cases and contract deployments while mitigating unnecessary risks. The proposal emphasizes that this limit ensures consistent performance characteristics while enabling most current use cases, including contract deployments and advanced DeFi interactions.

The implementation of a gas cap is also designed to improve compatibility with zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVMs) by encouraging the division of large transactions into smaller, more manageable segments.

Concerns have been raised regarding the potential consequences of increasing the gas limit, including accelerated state growth, longer synchronization times, and increased vulnerability to denial-of-service attacks. The most recent increase in August 2021, as part of the “London” upgrade, included the implementation of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559, which introduced a new fee structure and effectively doubled the gas limit.

The concept of the gas limit is integral to understanding Ethereum's operational framework. It serves as a cap on the volume of transactions and smart contract operations within a block, playing a crucial role in the network's scalability and efficiency. Historically, Ethereum has undergone seven major gas limit increases.

To prevent excessively big blocks from impairing network synchronization and performance, a gas limit is imposed. Validators can dynamically modify the gas limit within specific parameters. By allowing more transactions into each block, the gas limit may be raised, thereby increasing the network's capacity and throughput overall.