New Ethereum proposal aims to boost block times by 50%

A new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) would slash block times on Ethereum by 33% and increase data capacity — increasing overall throughput by 50%, developers claim.

Introduced on Oct. 5 by Illyriad Games co-founder Ben Adams, EIP-7781 aims to slash block times on the Ethereum network from its current 12 seconds to eight seconds, increase the latency of based rollups, and boost the capacity of blobs — a temporary data structure to reduce layer-2 network fees.

In an Oct. 6 post to X, Pseudonymous developer Cygaar said EIP-7781 would be the “first huge” step toward improving the base layer of the Ethereum network, as the bulk of developer focus is being herded toward Ethereum L2 networks as scaling solutions. 

Aside from increasing mainnet throughput, the proposal also aims to distribute bandwidth usage over time, lowering peak bandwidth requirements without increasing individual block or blob counts. 

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake voiced his approval of the EIP on GitHub, saying that its immediate proposal aligned with some of the broader goals proposed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum scaling organizations. 

Drake claimed that reducing block times would see decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap v3 be “1.22x more efficient” and could save “roughly $100M in CEX-DEX arbitrage per year and ultimately leading to better execution for users.”

The proposal would also improve the user experience of Ethereum smart contracts by reducing confirmation times by 33% and smoothing out “peak load” across more slots, Drake added.

Several developers noted that reducing block times could pose a danger to solo stakers.

Shorter block times could cause execution state growth — the increasing amount of data on a blockchain — which requires more powerful hardware and bandwidth to propagate the blockchain’s state in less time. 

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In an Oct. 6 post to X, Cinnehaim Ventures partner Adam Cochran said the new EIP seemed “reasonable” with its imposition on solo stakers as long as the gas limit per block remained unchanged. 

“Would want to see some tests on I/O hardware and staker return ping times to make sure it doesn’t cut off some home stakers but, seems like it should be within range for most,” added Cochran. 

However, increased requirements for stakers could pose a problem for Ethereum’s long-term path to decentralization. 

This EIP comes just three days after Buterin discussed the idea of reducing the minimum amount required to become a validator on the Ethereum network from the current 36 Ether (ETH) amount to 16 or 24 ETH in a bid to improve network security and decentralization.

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