Ethereum raises block gas limit to 60M as network prepares for Fusaka upgrade

Ethereum’s baseline capacity has expanded once again, with the network raising its block gas limit from 45 million to 60 million — a move that developers and DeFi users hope will ease congestion and reduce costs across the ecosystem.

The increase, applied automatically on November 25 after support from more than half of Ethereum validators, represents a significant scaling milestone at the base layer and comes just days ahead of the network’s Fusaka hard fork.

The adjustment was first highlighted by Ethereum Foundation researcher Toni Wahrstätter, who described the change as the result of a year-long effort to improve throughput.

“Just a year after the community started pushing for higher gas limits, Ethereum is now running with a 60M block gas limit,” he said in a The Block report. “That’s a 2× increase in a single year — and it’s only the beginning.”

Higher gas capacity follows technical advancements

The increase was not a standalone development.

According to independent researcher Zhixiong Pan, three key factors aligned to enable the network to support heavier loads: EIP-7623, which introduced block-size safeguards; multi-client performance optimizations allowing higher throughput; and several months of stable testnet results under increased demand.

Pan argued that these converging improvements open the door to more assertive L1 scaling without compromising network stability.

The underlying implication for developers and users is clear — if the network can support more computation per block, it may enable cheaper and more frequent on-chain activity, reducing reliance on layer-2 networks during peak periods.

Still, the higher limit brings operational considerations for validators, who must process larger blocks while maintaining synchronization across the network.

For now, test data suggests stability, but future adjustments will likely depend on continued performance under real-world conditions.

Vitalik Buterin signals more selective scaling ahead

While the increase doubles capacity year-on-year, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said future upgrades may adopt a more selective approach to scaling.

Instead of uniformly raising limits, Buterin suggested pairing higher throughput with increased gas costs for computationally heavy operations — including complex opcodes, heavy precompiles, and certain contract calls.

This targeted method, he argued, would preserve validator efficiency while still allowing block sizes to grow.

The goal is to ensure that increases in network capacity are balanced against computational costs so that scaling remains sustainable in the long term.

The rising throughput is also occurring alongside a notable surge in layer-2 activity.

Scaling networks processed a record 31,000 transactions per second over the past 24 hours, with zero-knowledge rollup Lighter leading at 5,455 TPS and Base contributing 137 TPS.

These figures highlight rollups’ expanding role in the broader Ethereum ecosystem even as the L1 grows more capable.

Fusaka hard fork nears with key scaling components

The timing of the gas-limit increase coincides with Ethereum’s next major network milestone — the Fusaka upgrade — officially targeted for December 3 and now live across testnets.

At its core is PeerDAS, a redesign of data availability sampling that Buterin has described as essential for the network’s long-term scaling roadmap.

The upgrade also introduces routine client improvements, consensus refinements, and security enhancements.

Alongside Fusaka, a $2 million audit contest is underway, continuing Ethereum’s trend of securing upgrades through competitive testing incentives.

With base-layer capacity expanding and new scaling infrastructure arriving, Ethereum is entering a period of accelerated performance development.

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