Remember when sending a simple ETH transfer cost you $50 and took twenty confirmations? Yeah, me too. That nightmare feels like ancient history most days, but every once in a while Ethereum still reminds us it can get congested. Well, something pretty massive just happened quietly in the background that should make those moments far less frequent.
Last night, without fanfare, without a dramatic countdown, and definitely without a hard fork, Ethereum’s block gas limit jumped from 45 million to 60 million. That’s the highest it’s been since 2021. And the craziest part? The network did it all by itself.
A Community Actually Took Control – And It Worked
Let me paint the picture. Over the last year, two developers – Eric Connor and Mariano Conti – started a little campaign called “Pump The Gas.” Nothing fancy, just a website and a plea: hey validators, bump your gas target a little higher, please. They weren’t asking for a protocol change. They were asking people running nodes to turn a knob that’s always been there.
And people listened. Slowly at first, then faster. By November 2025 more than 513,000 validators had changed their configuration. Once the network detected enough of them pointing at 60 million, the protocol automatically raised the ceiling. No vote on Snapshot, no EIP, no core-dev call. Just pure decentralized coordination.
Honestly? That’s kind of beautiful.
So What Does “60 Million Gas” Actually Mean in Practice?
Think of gas limit as the size of the lunchbox Ethereum packs every every 12 seconds. Bigger lunchbox = more sandwiches (transactions) fit inside. Simple.
The jump from 30 million (post-Dencun average) to 60 million is effectively a 100% increase in theoretical throughput on layer 1. In real terms that means:
- DEX swaps that used to get stuck behind meme-coin frenzies now clear faster
- NFT mints during drops won’t spike fees into the stratosphere quite as easily
- Complex DeFi transactions (vault deposits, liquidations, etc.) have way more breathing room
- Rollup posting costs drop because blobs suddenly have twice the competition for space
Early data this morning already shows average gas price sitting comfortably under 8 gwei even with decent activity. That hasn’t happened during U.S. hours in months.
Why This Timing Feels Almost Too Perfect
The Fusaka upgrade (previously called Pectra) goes live on mainnet in less than a week – December 3rd to be exact. Fusaka brings EIP-7702, better account abstraction, more blob capacity, and a bunch of validator experience improvements.
Raising the gas limit right now is like widening the highway the week before you add high-occupancy lanes. The network just gave itself a massive head start.
“Just a year after the community started pushing for higher gas limits, Ethereum is now running with a 60M block gas limit. That’s a 2x increase in a single year — and it’s only the beginning.”
– Toni Wahrstätter, Ethereum Foundation researcher
I love that quote because it captures the mood perfectly. This isn’t the endgame; it’s proof the mechanism still works.
The Subtle Genius of “Target vs Limit” Most People Miss
Ethereum actually has two numbers: the hard limit (what we just raised to 60M) and the softer target (usually set around 50-66% of the limit). Miners/validators can produce blocks up to the limit, but the protocol nudges them toward the target.
This creates a buffer against sudden spikes. Even if someone tries to spam the network, blocks won’t instantly balloon to maximum size – they creep up gradually. It’s elegant risk management built right into the consensus layer.
So yes, we now have headroom for days.
Will This Kill Layer 2 Narrative? (Spoiler: No)
Every time L1 gets cheaper, someone claims “L2s are dead.” That take ages like milk. Layer 2s aren’t just about cost – they’re about guaranteed data availability, faster finality, specialized execution environments, and sovereign rollups.
A fatter L1 actually helps L2s. More blob space means cheaper batch posting. More calldata room means cheaper fallback paths. Everyone wins.
Think of it as upgrading from a two-lane road to a four lanes while still building the parallel expressway. Traffic flows better everywhere.
What Vitalik Thinks Comes Next
Vitalik dropped a subtle but important comment a few days ago. He said future gas limit increases will probably be more “surgical” – raising overall capacity while simultaneously making certain opcodes more expensive if they’re disproportionately heavy on state growth or IO.
Translation: Ethereum wants to keep growing the pie, but discourage people from stuffing it with junk food. I’m totally here for that approach.
Quick Look at the Numbers (Very Fresh) Data
| Metric | Pre-Increase (Nov 26) | Post-Increase (Nov 27 morning) |
| Average Gas Price | 18-25 gwei | 6-9 gwei |
| Block Fullness | 92-98% | 61-74% |
| Daily Transactions | ~1.18 M | ~1.31 M (and climbing) |
| Blob Count per Block | 3-4 | 5-6 |
Those numbers are literally hours old. Expect them to keep improving as more validators sync the new target.
The Bigger Picture Nobody’s Talking About
This whole episode is the best advertisement for proof-of-stake governance I’ve seen in years. No foundation, no core devs, no IMF-style committee – just a grassroots campaign that convinced half a million strangers running nodes in their basements to coordinate peacefully.
If that doesn’t give you goosebumps about where this ecosystem is heading, I don’t know what will.
We’re entering 2026 with:
- A layer 1 that just doubled capacity on community demand
- Fusaka bringing EOF, Verkle trees, and history expiry
- L2 throughput already pushing 100+ TPS combined
- Statelessness and PeerDAS on the medium-term roadmap
The “Ethereum can’t scale” narrative is officially on life support.
So next time someone tells you crypto winters kill innovation, show them what half a million validators just pulled off while the rest of the world was eating Thanksgiving leftovers.
The network just flexed. And it’s only getting warmed up.
