Ethereum now operates with a block gas limit around 60 million, doubling from the 30 million baseline that held for years. This alone marks the largest live capacity expansion Ethereum has ever sustained without disruption. But the more defining moment came with Vitalik Buterin’s reaction to it.
“We expect continued growth but more targeted and less uniform growth for next year.”
Expect continued growth but more targeted / less uniform growth for next year.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 26, 2025
eg. one possible future is: 5x gas limit increase together with 5x gas cost increase for operations that are relatively inefficient to process
Potential targets for such increases (my current view):… https://t.co/FkiTxJnEAq
From Barely Functional to Blockspace Abundant
Ethereum did not begin spacious. In 2015, the gas limit was restricted to the point where even a basic transaction could not be processed. It was careful, guarded & intentionally small. Only after the system proved stable did the limit expand and the first wave of smart contracts emerge. Little by little, the network learned to breathe.
As applications grew, Ethereum stepped upward because scaling brought pressure as quickly as it brought opportunity. More demand meant more strain, and with strain came growing pains.
Stress, Attacks, Adjustments, Survival
In 2016, spam attacks revealed that cheap operations could choke the chain. The response was immediate and serious: gas repricing, temporary reductions and slow increases only after stability returned.
Through 2017 to 2019, the limit climbed into comfortable territory: 6M, then 8M, then 10M, enough to power ICOs and early DeFi. Every jump required debate, proof, and validation.
The DeFi Boom
Then came the surge. The NFT wave, DeFi protocols, automated markets, liquid staking, all demanding more blockspace than Ethereum had capacity for. The network held near 30M like a lid pressed against rising pressure. For nearly three years, Ethereum stayed there, unable to simply stretch further without risking decentralization.
The plateau lasted then it broke.
The Lift to 60M
In 2024 and 2025, the network changed shape not through a hard fork, but through progress in clients, bandwidth and validator configurations. The ceiling lifted from 30M to 36M, from 36M to 45M and now sits around 60M, effectively doubling Ethereum’s throughput compared to the EIP-1559 era.
Just a year after the community started pushing for higher gas limits, Ethereum is now running with a 60M block gas limit.
— Toni Wahrstätter ⟠ (@nero_eth) November 26, 2025
That’s a 2× increase in a single year — and it’s only the beginning.
H/t to all client teams, the researchers involved, and to @nanexcool and @econoar for… pic.twitter.com/5JB8FoiACP
This was the breakthrough moment: Ethereum scaled, stayed stable, and proved that modern infrastructure could hold more load. The network is not starved for blockspace anymore... it has room.
Vitalik's Message: Growth Must Now Be Intentional
Doubling capacity is major, but Vitalik’s sentence is bigger than the number itself. Ethereum is entering a phase where scale alone is not the goal. Raw, equal-expansion growth risks pushing the chain into the hands of large servers and cloud systems. If Ethereum scales without discrimination, decentralization becomes collateral damage.
Vitalik’s direction essentially says: growth should continue, but not everything should expand at the same rate. More space for execution is good & unchecked space for permanent data is risky.
The future of Ethereum scaling, if interpreted through Vitalik’s framing, is not about how much gas the network can handle but about what kind of growth keeps the network accessible, secure and human-run for decades.
This is the Inflection Moment
The past decade was about proving Ethereum can scale without breaking. The next decade will be about scaling without losing decentralization. The milestone was hitting 60M. The meaning lies in how Vitalik wants growth shaped beyond this point.
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