Ethereum starts large gas limit increases in 2026 through BALs and ePBS

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared on X today that he believes zk-EVMs are going to become the main way Ethereum validates blocks between 2027 and 2030.

Vitalik compared Ethereum’s situation to peer-to-peer networks that came long before it, like “BitTorrent (2000): huge total bandwidth, highly decentralized, no consensus.”

Ethereum starts large gas limit increases in 2026 through BALs and ePBS

Vitalik then pointed to Bitcoin in 2009, saying:-

Vitalik said these upgrades are already running code, not theory. Data availability sampling is active on mainnet today. zk-EVMs already hit production performance levels. Safety checks are the final step, and Vitalik traced that work back ten years, starting with his first data availability research commit and later zk-EVM experiments that began around 2020.

The rollout plan is staged. In 2026, Ethereum expects large gas limit increases that do not depend on zk-EVMs, driven by BALs and ePBS. That same year should also bring the first chances to run a zk-EVM node on parts of the network, according to Vitalik.

From 2027 through 2030, Ethereum plans even larger gas limit jumps as zk-EVMs become the main block validation method. “ZKEVM becomes the primary way to validate blocks on the network,” Vitalik wrote.

Another piece is distributed block building. Vitalik said the long-term goal is a setup where a full block is never built in one place. He said this is not urgent, but worth building toward. In Vitalik’s words:-

Vitalik said that it also improves geographic fairness. The Ethereum Foundation has it stated on its website that higher gas limits on Ethereum are made safe by zk-EVMs increase capacity, cut congestion, and stabilize fees.

The Foundation said:- “Bringing zkEVMs to L1 is a multi-faceted effort. Our work is organized into three core workstreams, with parallel progress on client implementations.”

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