The proposal would allow managing a considerable number of transactions per block on Ethereum. The size of each block gets limited by the amount of gas that the computational effort represents.
Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin has suggested a new Ethereum Enhancement Proposal (EIP) that plans to increase the block size to 1 megabyte (MB). This action goes to find a solution, in the short or medium term, for the high rates that get paid in this network specialized in smart contracts.
EIP-4488, which is currently a subject under discussion, got posted on GitHub on November 23. The motivation for increasing the block size focuses on making more use of rollups or second-layer solutions. According to Buterin, they could set a reduction of current commissions up to eight times before the arrival of Ethereum 2.0.
Currently, the blocks in Ethereum get only limited by the amount of gas that each transaction adds. Gas means the computational cost required of a miner to validate an operation within this network. Currently, the maximum limit per block is at least 12,500,000 gas.
The gas price gets defined by the consensus of miners, who choose whether to increase or reduce it according to demand balances. A particular transaction on Ethereum – such as sending ether (ETH) from one wallet to another – typically takes 21,000 worth of gas.
According to data from Eth Gas Station, of USD 0.17 per 100 gas units, the commissions are at least USD 40. The new EIP would set various changes in the protocol rules and set up block limits linked to data with a maximum of 1 megabyte. The maximum size reached in a block of Ethereum is 0.08 MB. It is a figure almost ten times smaller than the size proposed by Vitalik Buterin.
Ethereum blocks process at least 15.1 transactions per second (TPS) along with their current weight and with mining times of 12 seconds between each of them, according to data from Blockchair. An increase in the size of the blocks could lead to a growth in the TPS.
There are Rollup developments that manage many more TPS than the Ethereum mainnet processes. One of these cases is ZkSync 2.0, which would process more than 20 thousand TPS once they get enabled.
In this case, increasing the size of the blocks in Ethereum would allow more space for this type of second-layer solvency since there is more room for processing the information of the rollups.
However, the increase would have its cost. With a block mined every 12 seconds and a weight of 1 MB, it would mean that the blockchain would grow, theoretically, three terabytes per year, or according to Vitalik, in more friendly scenarios, one terabyte per year. This situation could challenge new nodes linking to the network and needing to audit such data.
For now, the EIP is a matter under discussion and has yet to be approved. However, several developers have already given their approval for this improvement for Ethereum. If approved, EIP would approach Ethereum, it can do it through a hard fork or a soft fork.
By: Jenson Nuñez
