# Writeup to explain the gas limit raise

Source: https://x.com/dankrad/status/1867078641118789787
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Writeup-to-explain-the-gas-limit-raise?index=0x675a9634d5430ec65f42c14cbcb84ab5651c81dbd4eef5514664e81ff6868f0ec6372f11
Submitted by tim on 2024-12-12 UTC, 3 upvotes, 0 comments

## Summary

The gas limit is set by validators, who vote on whether to raise or lower it with every block, and there is no standard EIP-style process for changing it. The gas limit has never been increased since the merge, and some participants have begun signalling that an increase is due. Core developers found that raising it above 40 million is not yet safe because a constant must first be changed in the clients, so 36 million is being widely endorsed as a first step. Clients are releasing updates to make 36 million the default, and the author expects some large pools to join within weeks.

## Article

Quick writeup to explain what's happening about the gas limit raise:
Different from almost all other protocol matters, the gas limit is directly controlled by the validators. With every block, a validator votes whether to raise or lower the gas limit. So, very unlike the EIP process, there is no "standard process" to raise the gas limit.
Now, the gas limit has *never* been increased since the merge. However, before the merge, it was an established practice that miners would not use this power arbitrarily, but typically only after core devs signalled it was ok to change it.

Recently, some of us have started signalling that we think it is time for an increase in the gas. Unfortunately this hit a bit of a speed bump as Core Devs discovered that raising it over 40m was actually not safe due to a constant that has to be changed in the clients first (https://ethresear.ch/t/on-increasing-the-block-gas-limit-technical-considerations-path-forward/21225/6).

However, I think now there is a lot of messaging agreeing that 36m is a good "first step" and clients are releasing updates to make this the default (so validators don't have to manually use command line flags to vote for this). I think it is likely that some big pools will join in the next few weeks and we will see this increase.