Ethereum hard fork ushers in the era of an 80 million gas limit

The scalability enhancement of the Ethereum network is gaining momentum. With the second BPO hard fork conducted in early January, Ethereum increased its blob capacity to the next level, and the development team is pushing forward with work to raise the gas limit from 60 million to 80 million. According to core developer meeting materials disclosed by Kristin Kim, Vice President of Research at Galaxy Digital, major development teams such as the Ethereum Foundation and Nethermind are systematically preparing to dramatically improve network processing performance.

Achievements and Technical Requirements Since the January Hard Fork

The path Ethereum has taken toward scalability is clear. During the first BPO hard fork on December 9, blob capacity increased by 66%, and a similar level of performance improvement was achieved in the second hard fork in early January. However, to continuously increase the block gas limit, technical improvements at the client level must precede. Ethereum Foundation engineer Banavas stated that they are waiting for the completion of partial blob response optimization at the execution layer and the setting of maximum blob flags at the consensus layer. This signifies not just a simple increase in numbers but an expansion based on the overall stability of the network infrastructure.

Blob-Based Scalability and Next-Generation Performance Goals

The Ethereum development community has agreed to raise the gas limit to 180 million by the end of 2026. This represents more than doubling the current level of 80 million and is expected to revolutionize Ethereum’s transaction processing capacity. The strategy of gradually increasing the gas limit with each hard fork demonstrates an intention to maximize performance without compromising network stability. Blob-based expansion is not merely about increasing block size but is becoming a core pillar of Ethereum’s long-term scalability roadmap.