Ethereum contemplates a significant boost in Gas, raising questions about its potential to outperform Solana.
In the world of blockchain, Ethereum is set to undergo a significant transformation with the anticipated Glamsterdam update in 2026. The update aims to enhance scalability and privacy, marking a significant step towards improving the network's performance.
One of the key aspects of this update is the proposed increase in gas limit via EIP-9698. This change is expected to boost Ethereum's transaction throughput to approximately 2,000 transactions per second (TPS) by raising the block gas limit dramatically over the next few years, with a target of 3.6 billion gas by 2029. This is a substantial improvement from current Ethereum mainnet levels.
However, it's important to note that Ethereum's proposed upgrade, while a major leap forward in terms of layer 1 scalability, still falls short of Solana's current capabilities. Solana, known for its high-throughput, proof-of-history consensus mechanism, consistently processes transactions at speeds often cited in the tens of thousands TPS in real-world usage. Solana's continued upgrades aim to double block space and increase compute units, further reinforcing its position as one of the fastest and most efficient blockchains.
Comparing the two, Ethereum's proposed TPS after the upgrade is around 2,000, while Solana supports thousands in real-world usage. In terms of gas limit, Ethereum is targeting an increase to 3.6 billion by 2029, while Solana is increasing its compute units from 48M to 60M. The consensus and architecture also differ, with Ethereum employing a proof-of-stake mechanism and Solana using a proof-of-history, highly parallelized approach. In terms of efficiency, Ethereum's on-chain execution still places some constraints, while Solana offers very high throughput and network stability.
Despite Ethereum's gas limit increase under EIP-9698 promising substantial improvements in throughput, it is unlikely to fully match Solana's current speed and efficiency in the near term. Ethereum's approach remains more conservative and infrastructure-heavy, balancing throughput with security and decentralization. Solana, on the other hand, maintains a speed advantage due to its different design principles and aggressive scaling roadmap.
Ethereum's upgrade, however, could compete more effectively in moderate to high throughput use cases. It may not directly surpass Solana's raw speed or efficiency as of now. Continued Layer 2 solutions and complementary scaling tech also remain key to Ethereum's broader scalability strategy.
The upcoming changes also include optimizations such as EIP-7928 and EIP-7863, designed to improve the organization and processing of transactions. Ethereum Foundation developer Dankrad Feist has proposed an update to the mechanism for adjusting the gas limit, introducing a predictable exponential growth pattern. EIP-4444 will allow nodes to opt not to retain old data, reducing storage needs. EIP-7886 will extend the time available for validators to process blocks, facilitating the integration of advanced technologies such as zero-knowledge proof (zkVMs) machines.
Lower gas fees could result from these changes, increasing accessibility and adoption by the community and developers. This increase in efficiency could enable Ethereum to host high-demand decentralized applications (dApps), including decentralized finance (DeFi), games, and non-fungible tokens (NFT). The goal is to increase Ethereum's TPS to 2,000, allowing it to compete with Solana in terms of performance. The set of updates, including EIP-9698, seeks to multiply the gas limit and processing speed while maintaining Ethereum as a secure, decentralized, and adaptable network.
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