Proposal unveiled by Vitalik with potential to fundamentally alter Ethereum's structure: seeks gas restrictions
In a move aimed at strengthening the Ethereum network, co-founder Vitalik Buterin has presented EIP-7983, an initiative that introduces a hard cap on the gas consumption per individual transaction. This new limit, set at 16,777,216 gas (2²⁴), is half the current block gas limit of approximately 36 million gas.
The proposal, EIP-7983, focuses on controlling excessive gas use at the transaction level without modifying the global block limit. This is a strategic move designed primarily to prevent denial-of-service (DoS) attacks by ensuring no single transaction can consume the entire block’s gas.
Key points of EIP-7983 include:
- Gas Cap Per Transaction: Any transaction requiring more than 16,777,216 gas would be rejected during block validation. This prevents transaction-level monopolization of block resources and reduces network congestion caused by large, complex, or malicious transactions.
- Improved Network Stability and Security: By capping gas consumption per transaction, EIP-7983 aims to smooth out fee spikes, reduce block verification delays, and mitigate DoS-style attacks, leading to more predictable and stable network behavior.
- Facilitating Scalability Technologies: The proposal supports Ethereum’s long-term scalability goals by encouraging leaner smart contract code and ensuring large transactions must be split. This approach aligns with improving compatibility with zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVMs) and facilitating parallel transaction execution, both crucial for scaling Ethereum efficiently.
- Community Consensus and Implementation: As of mid-2025, EIP-7983 is in the draft phase, subject to community review and technical validation before any hard fork enforces the limit.
EIP-7983 differs from Buterin’s previous gas-related proposals mainly in its focus and specificity. Unlike past proposals that adjusted block gas limits either to raise capacity or tweak fee dynamics, EIP-7983 uniquely imposes a strict per-transaction gas ceiling. This represents a shift from controlling total block consumption toward limiting individual transaction size to enhance fairness and security.
Buterin also advocates for the use of copyleft licenses, which require developers to share their improvements on open code. This initiative is aimed at preserving the original collaborative spirit of Ethereum and Web3, ensuring that innovation benefits the entire community, not just a few private-interest actors.
These initiatives, including EIP-7983, aim to build a more robust, efficient Ethereum ready for the future. However, Buterin has raised concerns about the use of the term "decentralization" in the crypto industry, stating that many projects use it as a slogan without providing real guarantees of privacy, censorship resistance, or user autonomy. He proposes that protocols be evaluated with concrete tests to determine their level of decentralization and user autonomy.
Buterin presented EIP-7983 at the Ethereum Community Conference in Cannes, France, where he also delivered a critique of the current state of the crypto ecosystem. The proposal facilitates integration with emerging technologies like zkVM, which require more segmented and lightweight transactions to function efficiently. For developers, this proposal represents an opportunity to write more efficient and modular code, promoting more sustainable practices in dApp design.
In summary, EIP-7983 aims to protect Ethereum from DoS attacks by capping gas per transaction, promote network stability with predictable fees, and position Ethereum to better leverage emerging scaling technologies, differing from previous proposals by placing a novel transaction-level gas cap rather than only adjusting block limits.
- Embracing the focus on safety and efficiency, EIP-7983 proposes to cap gas consumption per transaction to prevent network congestion, reduce spikes in fees, and mitigate denial-of-service attacks.
- By prioritizing technology that supports scaling, EIP-7983 encourages leaner smart contract code and fosters compatibility with zero-knowledge virtual machines, facilitating more efficient and secure transactions in the Ethereum network.
