Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, together with Ethereum researcher Toni Wahrstätter, has introduced a new proposal—EIP-7983—designed to improve the network’s efficiency and resilience. The key idea? Set a protocol-level cap on the amount of gas a single transaction can consume.
Currently, a single Ethereum transaction can potentially use the entire block’s gas limit. This presents a risk to network stability and opens the door to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. EIP-7983 seeks to change that by enforcing a maximum gas limit of 16.77 million per individual transaction.
Why Limit Per-Transaction Gas Usage?
By capping gas at the transaction level, Ethereum developers aim to distribute gas consumption more evenly across the network. This change would prevent any one transaction from overwhelming a block, significantly enhancing network stability and security.
Additionally, it will encourage developers and users to break large, complex transactions into smaller parts, which not only improves processing efficiency but also supports compatibility with zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVMs)—a growing part of Ethereum’s scalability ecosystem.
Transactions that exceed the 16.77 million gas limit will be automatically rejected during the block validation process. This approach simplifies the protocol’s behavior, making it more predictable and manageable for developers and node operators.
Balancing Innovation and Efficiency
The 16.77 million gas cap was carefully selected to accommodate even the most demanding DeFi applications while still protecting the network from potential threats. It represents a balance between network performance and transaction complexity, ensuring Ethereum remains a robust platform for innovation without compromising security.
EIP-7983 is part of a broader effort to streamline Ethereum’s architecture and improve transaction cost predictability. If adopted, this proposal could pave the way for a more resilient and scalable Ethereum ecosystem.
