Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and researcher Toni Wahrstätter have proposed EIP-7983, which would cap gas usage per transaction at 16.77M. This new proposal intends to safeguard the network from denial-of-service (DoS) assaults by preventing a single transaction from using an entire block's capacity—a vulnerability that has previously resulted in network congestion and unexpected fees.
The recommended limit is half the present block maximum, which ensures that even sophisticated DeFi procedures and smart contracts are enabled. Most existing decentralized apps and transactions are already well below this level; thus, only a few will require changes. The cap pushes developers to build more efficient code, potentially lowering long-term storage costs and state bloat.
Beyond security, the gas cap may increase interoperability with future technologies such as zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVMs) and multi-threaded processing, hence aiding Ethereum's scaling goals. However, the plan is not backward compatible and would require community consensus and software upgrades.
If adopted, EIP-7983 might be incorporated in a future hard fork, taking a huge step towards a more secure, reliable, and scalable Ethereum network.
