Vitalik Buterin Advocates for Increased Ethereum L1 Gas Limit
Ethereum's gas limit recently increased to 36 million, prompting discussions about further raises. Vitalik Buterin emphasizes the need to enhance Layer 1 (L1) capacity for better transaction costs, censorship resistance, and scalability.
- Buterin advocates scaling L1 nearly tenfold while acknowledging the importance of Layer 2 (L2) solutions.
- Censorship resistance is vital; prompt transaction processing is essential when users pay market fees.
- Current cost for accessing L1 is approximately $4.50; Buterin suggests it should be reduced to below $1, requiring a 4.5x increase in capacity.
- Cross-L2 asset transfers currently cost around $13.87, with potential reductions to $0.28 if L1 scalability improves sixfold.
- In emergency scenarios, like mass exits, existing L1 capacity can only support 7.56 million users exiting in a week.
- Optimizing exit protocols could increase support to 121 million users weekly, yet challenges remain for global scale.
- Issuing ERC20 tokens on L1 offers better security against governance attacks compared to L2s, but high costs deter participation.
- Wallet operations add to gas burdens; reducing costs is necessary for practical cross-L2 interactions.
Improvements in L1 functionality are crucial for Ethereum's future scalability and security.