Vitalik Proposes EIP-7983 to Cap Ethereum Gas for Better Security
Key Takeaway: EIP-7983 will limit maximum gas per transaction to 16.77 million, helping distribute resources more evenly, prevent DoS attacks, and improve overall Ethereum network performance.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and researcher Toni Wahrstätter have introduced proposal EIP-7983, which aims to establish protocol-level gas limits to enhance the network’s security and performance.
The proposal sets a maximum gas limit of 16.77 million (2²⁴) for individual transactions. “By implementing this limit, Ethereum can enhance its resilience against certain DoS vectors, improve network stability, and provide more predictability to transaction processing costs,” the proposal explained.
Addressing Current Security Issues
Ethereum’s current architecture allows a single transaction to consume an entire block’s gas limit, creating a risk of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks and unpredictable network behavior. EIP-7983 addresses this by capping individual transaction gas consumption, aiming for more even usage distribution. This change would prevent single transactions from overwhelming blocks, thereby enhancing the protocol’s resilience to network congestion and malicious attacks
Enhancing zkVM Compatibility
The proposed cap is also intended to support better compatibility with zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVMs). By limiting gas, the network encourages large transactions to be broken into smaller, more manageable parts, which are easier for zkVMs to process.
According to the draft, any transaction specifying a gas limit above 16.77 million would be rejected during block validation. This ensures that oversized transactions are blocked from entering the network and from being included in new blocks. It’s important to note that this cap operates independently of the overall block gas limit, which miners and validators can still adjust within the existing consensus framework.
Choosing the 16.77 Million Limit
Buterin and Wahrstätter selected the 16.77 million threshold as a balanced middle ground between performance and complexity. They argue that this limit supports the majority of current DeFi use cases and contract deployments, while reducing potential risks from overly large transactions.
“This value enables most current use cases including contract deployments and advanced DeFi interactions while ensuring consistent performance characteristics,” the proposal reads.
While the proposal isn’t backward-compatible for transactions that exceed the new limit, the authors point out that most current transactions already fall well below the cap. This should minimize any significant disruption for users and developers.
EIP-7983 builds on earlier proposals like EIP-7825, which similarly aimed to bring more predictability to how transactions are executed across the Ethereum network.
Ethereum Simplification Vision
Back in May, Buterin called for simplifying Ethereum’s base protocol to make the network more efficient, secure, and accessible—drawing inspiration from Bitcoin’s minimalist design philosophy.
At the time, he proposed a long-term plan to restructure Ethereum’s architecture across consensus, execution, and shared components. His goal was to streamline the protocol within five years. According to Buterin, Ethereum’s increasing complexity has resulted in longer development timelines, higher costs, and growing security concerns.
More recently, he also introduced the concept of a new digital identity system called “pluralistic identity.” The idea behind it is to protect user privacy while enabling fairer and more inclusive participation in digital life.
