Ethereum raises block gas limit to 60M as ecosystem throughput hits new records ahead of Fusaka upgrade

Ethereum's block gas limit has been raised from 45 million to 60 million following calls from decentralized finance users and builders alike for expanded capacity, according to data from GasLimit.pics.

Toni Wahrstätter, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, announced the increase on X, calling it the culmination of a year-long community effort to increase base-layer capacity.

"Just a year after the community started pushing for higher gas limits, Ethereum is now running with a 60M block gas limit," he wrote. "That's a 2× increase in a single year — and it's only the beginning."

The adjustment was automatically applied on Nov. 25 after more than half of the validators signaled approval — the threshold required under Ethereum's current consensus rules.

Ethereum gas limit increased from 45M to 60M | Image: GasLimit.pics

Commentators like independent blockchain researcher Zhixiong Pan said the increase is possible due to three converging improvements: EIP-7623, which introduces protocol-level block-size safeguards; client optimizations across multiple implementations that enable higher gas throughput; and months of testnet results showing consistent, stable block propagation under heavier load.

In an X post, Pan argued that aligning these conditions gives the ecosystem room to pursue more "aggressive L1 scaling" without compromising stability.

Vitalik points to more targeted scaling in 2026

Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin also weighed in, saying the higher gas limit is part of a broader shift toward more tailored optimization rather than a uniform increase in network capacity.

He suggested future adjustments may pair further gas limit increases with higher gas costs for computationally expensive operations such as heavy precompiles, complex arithmetic opcodes, and specific contract calls.

This approach, Buterin said, is designed to preserve network efficiency as effective block sizes grow while still enabling higher throughput at the base layer.

Additionally, the gas limit increase comes as Ethereum scaling networks reached a record 31,000 transactions per second over the past 24 hours, according to GrowThePie data.

Lighter — a perpetuals-focused zero-knowledge rollup with roughly $1.2 billion in total value locked — led with about 5,455 TPS. Base followed with 137 TPS, while other rollups contributed smaller but steady throughput.

Fusaka inbound

The timing of the gas-limit increase is notable. Ethereum is days away from the Fusaka hard fork, officially targeted for Dec. 3, according to developer coordination calls reported by The Block.

Also, Fusaka has already been activated on testnets and recently opened a $2 million audit contest.

At the center of Fusaka is PeerDAS — a redesign of data availability sampling that Buterin has previously described as "key to Ethereum scaling." He touted the new architecture as crucial to achieving more reliable, efficient rollup data throughput.

Fusaka also includes routine client updates, consensus refinements, and security-hardening measures.