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Top Ethereum Mining Pools Increases Gas Limit to 15 Million (20% Increase)

source-logo  bitcoinexchangeguide.com 22 April 2021 13:09, UTC

The top Ethereum mining pool, Spark Pool, has announced an increase in the gas limit. “We are raising gas limit to 15 million,” said the pool on Wednesday. Currently, Spark Pool accounts for the largest hash power in the network at 22.4%, followed by Ethermine at 20.2%, and F2Pool at 9.1%. Bitfly, the mining company behind Ethermine, also tweeted,

“Following the efficiency improvements from the Berlin hard fork, we believe it is save to increase the Ethereum gas limit from 12,500,000 to 15,000,000. Another huge milestone for the community.”

This isn't the first time this has been done. Last summer, miners increased the limit from 10 million to 12.5 million per block, which has been the highest block gas limit the network has ever operated but of course not anymore. Over the years, the average gas limit has constantly been increasing, with a big jump recorded this week. Average Gas Limit Source: Blockchair While this move could increase the transaction throughput of the network, it doesn't mean the Ethereum network would be cheaper. In June, Spark Pool, Ethermine, and F2Pool worked together to increase the overall block gas limit. Block gas limit refers to the maximum of gas transaction fees that can be included in a single block which basically means miners get to process more transactions per block. While these miners can’t change the code of the blockchain directly, at least not with Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs), they do have the power to adjust the block gas limit by 0.1%. As we reported, daily transactions on the second-largest network have consistently been growing, hitting yet another new ATH at 1,565,355 on Wednesday, as per Etherscan. While transactions may process faster now, gas fees are not likely to be changed as we have been seen since last year; it has rather been surging. The average transaction fee in USD is currently around $20; in Ether terms, it’s 0.0074 ETH, and the average gas price is 128 Gwei. Interestingly, the Ethereum on-chain USD transaction fee hit its second-highest level in history this week at $47.3 million. Total fee revenue has surpassed $10 million per day since Feb. 1st, with an ATH set on Feb. 23rd at $49.8 million, as per Glassnode. Basically, gas usage is increased while the gas cost remains the same. Ethereum code developers like Peter Szilagyi, however, have been opposed to this increase, arguing that larger blocks increase the time to sync a new node, and it could make the network more vulnerable to DOS attacks. "Ethereum miners don't give a fuck about the long-term health of the network,” he had said at the time. Miners have increased the block gas limit six times in Ethereum’s history. However, this time, Szilagyi doesn’t have “any immediate objections to raising the gas limit to say 15M (let's not go crazy). Not saying to- or not to, just that I myself see no insta threat doing so.” 

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