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The Ethereum Foundation (EF) announced that the upcoming Fusaka hard fork will include a per-transaction gas limit cap of 16.78 million. The change, known as EIP‑7825, is already live on the Holesky and Sepolia testnets, and it is expected to launch on the Ethereum mainnet when Fusaka goes live in December.
Previously, a single transaction could consume an entire block’s 45 million gas limit, which opened the door to denial-of-service attacks and limited parallel execution. With the cap, no transaction can fill a whole block’s capacity, and block composition becomes more efficient and predictable. Developers are advised to test on Sepolia now and review their contracts for compliance with the cap ahead of mainnet deployment.
The EF explained that until now, a single transaction could use nearly the full block gas limit of approximately 45 million. That scenario could inhibit the rollout of parallel execution and expose the network to targeted attacks.
With EIP-7825 in place, each transaction will be limited to about 16.78 million gas - roughly one-third of the current block capacity. While the full block limit will continue to increase (the upgrade is raising it to 60 million gas), the per-transaction cap prevents any one transaction from monopolizing an entire block.
By splitting block capacity across multiple transactions, the network can process a broader range of activities in each block. This design supports the broader roadmap toward parallel execution and higher throughput. Developers who run batching scripts or contracts with heavy gas usage will need to evaluate their logic under the new cap. The average user will likely not notice any change in daily transactions.
According to researcher Toni Wahrstatter at the EF, the cap is “one step toward parallel execution (see EIP-7928: Block-level Access Lists).” Developers should test on Sepolia, checking signatures, deployers, tooling, and transaction sizes accordingly. The improvement aims to create predictable transaction sizes, which in turn enables a smoother transition to a future model that handles transactions simultaneously instead of sequentially.
The Fusaka upgrade also introduces the headline feature PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling), which lets nodes store only portions of Layer 2 “blob” data rather than complete datasets. This approach lowers hardware demand and allows cheaper, higher-throughput scaling for Layer 2 networks. The block gas limit is raised to 60 million gas, while the per-transaction cap of 16.77-16.78 million ensures that single transactions do not hijack larger block capacities.
The next test phase is scheduled for the Hoodi testnet on October 28, with mainnet deployment expected in December 2025. The change aligns with earlier upgrades: the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 and the Pectra upgrade on May 6, 2025, laid the groundwork for Fusaka’s enhancements.
For most everyday users, the per-transaction cap will impose little to no disruption. Regular transactions should continue as usual without hitting the new limit. Developers, however, must review contract designs that rely on large-batch gas usage and high-gas transactions. They need to test and adjust their tooling ahead of the mainnet rollout to avoid failed transactions or unexpected behavior.
More generally, the cap strengthens the network’s denial-of-service exposure and facilitates block composition with multiple transactions rather than allowing a single transaction to take over. By limiting transaction size and elevating block limits, the EF is laying the groundwork for future scaling enhancements. Will all this mean a greater throughput for Ethereum without sacrificing decentralization and security?
The Ethereum Foundation’s Fusaka upgrade introduces EIP-7825 and, with it, a 16.78M gas limit cap to minimize block bloat and optimize scalability. All of this is an essential milestone toward enabling parallel execution and improving efficiency in Ethereum’s changing blockchain ecosystem. Developers will want to get prepared for testing ahead of the MainNet deployment.
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