Key Takeaways:

• Ethereum plans to raise its gas limit to 80 million after the 7 January 2026 BPO hard fork.
• The increase requires key client upgrades to support larger block sizes.
• The move extends Ethereum’s gradual network scaling seen throughout 2025.

Ethereum developers are preparing to increase the network’s gas limit from 60 million to 80 million gas per block following the next scheduled protocol upgrade on 7 January 2026, a move aimed at expanding the network’s transaction capacity. 

This development was outlined by researchers and core contributors at recent Ethereum governance calls and developer discussions.

What the gas limit increase means for Ethereum

In Ethereum’s blockchain system, “gas” is the unit that measures the computational effort required to process transactions and execute smart contracts (automated programs that run on the blockchain). The gas limit sets the maximum amount of gas that can be included in each block, effectively determining how many transactions the network can process at once.

Raising the limit from 60 million to 80 million gas units per block would allow more transactions to be included in each block, increasing overall network capacity. This directly reduces congestion during periods of high usage and provides more room for decentralized applications (dApps) to operate.

The plan is linked to the second Blob Parameter Only (BPO) hard fork scheduled for 7 January 2026, a part of the broader Fusaka upgrade. Activated on the Ethereum blockchain on 3 December 2025, the Fusaka upgrade introduced the framework for these follow-up BPO mini-forks aimed at improving scalability and lowering transaction costs.

Developer statements and timeline

At an All Core Developers (ACD) meeting on 15 December 2025, Ethereum protocol contributors discussed the path forward for this gas limit change. Nethermind developer, Ben Adams, noted that developers feel prepared to increase the gas limit following the second BPO fork. 

However, Ethereum Foundation engineer, Barnabas Busa, clarified that two specific client-level upgrades must first be completed – implementation of partial blob responses on the execution layer and enabling the maximum blobs flag on the consensus layer. These changes are necessary for nodes (computers that maintain and validate the blockchain) to efficiently handle larger block sizes. 

This discussion was summarized in a protocol newsletter by Christine D. Kim, vice president of research at Galaxy Digital, which covered the developers’ intentions and preparatory steps for the January increase. 

How does this increase impact Ethereum’s network growth

The Ethereum developer community has a long-standing priority aimed at scaling the network, increasing the platform’s capabilities in handling high throughput without compromising decentralization. 

In 2025, the gas limit was raised multiple times, first from 30M to 35M in February 2025, and then the recent one on 26 November 2025, that raised it from 45M to 60M.

Increasing the gas limit is part of Ethereum’s broader scaling roadmap that also includes data availability upgrades, BPO hard forks, and future protocol changes. While the jump to 80 million represents a significant immediate boost, it is only a milestone toward a more ambitious target; many core developers and researchers have expressed a common goal to reach a 180 million gas limit by the end of 2026. These updates are aimed at supporting decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and high-throughput decentralized applications (dApps). 

Developers are scheduled to meet again on 5 January 2026, ahead of the hard fork, to confirm the timing and details of the gas limit increase.