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Ethereum developers plan to increase the network’s gas limit from 60 million to 80 million in January, a move aimed at enhancing transaction capacity and alleviating congestion. The timeline hinges on the second blob parameter-only (BPO) hard fork scheduled for January 7, with final confirmation expected at the All Core Developers meeting on January 5, 2026.
Christine Kim, vice president of research at Galaxy Digital, summarized discussions from Ethereum’s latest All Core Developers meeting, where participants reviewed near-term protocol goals expected to land in early January. The proposed gas limit increase builds on a series of execution-layer changes rolled out over the past year.
Raising the gas limit allows more transactions and smart contract calls in each block. That directly boosts throughput and can soften fee pressure during busy periods.
Ethereum Foundation developer operations engineer Barnabas Busa flagged two prerequisites that need to be in place before the increase. These include partial blob responses on the execution layer and a max blobs flag on the consensus layer. Both changes aim to handle larger data loads cleanly at the client level.
Developers see these steps as guardrails. They help nodes process bigger blocks without pushing hardware requirements beyond what many operators can support.
An 80 million gas limit will not turn Ethereum into a high-speed chain overnight. It will still trail faster layer 1s on raw transactions per second. The goal sits elsewhere.
Ethereum developers want to expand execution capacity while keeping the network stable and widely runnable. For users, that can translate into fewer fee spikes when demand jumps. For builders, it means more room for complex contracts and rollup activity inside each block.
You should view this as incremental scaling. Each increase compounds the last, building capacity step by step rather than chasing extremes.
The network has already raised its gas limit three times this year. It moved from 30 million to 35 million in February, then to 45 million in July, and reached 60 million in late November.
Members of the Ethereum developer and research community are now discussing a longer scaling runway. Ethereum educator and analyst Anthony Sassano has pointed to a potential target of 180 million gas by the end of 2026, contingent on continued client-side improvements and sustained network testing.
It's done – the Ethereum L1 gas limit is now 60 million!
Onwards to even greater increases in 2026 – let's aim for at least a 3x to 180 million! https://t.co/nr2F5QkbhC pic.twitter.com/5eC9yfMHte
— sassal.eth/acc 🦇🔊 (@sassal0x) November 26, 2025
Blobs remain part of that picture. The first BPO hard fork in December lifted blob capacity by 66 percent. The January fork aims to add another 66 percent. Blobs store rollup data offchain, cutting costs without bloating the base layer.
If the January plan moves ahead, Ethereum enters the new year with a clearer message. Scaling continues, but not at the expense of decentralization or operational safety.
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