Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin proposes fix for high gas fees

Crypto billionaire Vitalik Buterin has suggested a new short-term solution to curb soaring gas prices on the Ethereum network. The solution involves a new network upgrade that reduces the transaction calldata cost as well as limits the total transaction call data in a single block. 

Surging gas fee prices on Ethereum have constantly plagued the network where investors have been paying a very high transactional gas fee to execute a crypto transaction on the network. The explosive surge in gas fee prices has prompted many users to migrate to other cost-effective blockchain networks and has compelled many investors to ditch the network indefinitely. 

A quick fix that limits high gas fee prices

In a bid to control the increased gas fee prices on the network, Buterin has suggested a short-term network upgrade EIP-4488 that intends to restrict the soaring gas fee prices. 

As per the information posted on the Ethereum Magicians forum, Buterin has laid out a plan that includes a quick fix solution that ensures that the explosive gas prices can be curbed for the time being by reducing the transaction calldata cost and restricting total transaction calldata in a single block. 

“Simply decreasing the calldata gas cost from 16 to 3 would increase the maximum block size to 10M bytes. This would push the Ethereum p2p [peer-to-peer] networking layer to unprecedented levels of strain and risk breaking the network; some previous live tests of ~500 kB blocks a few years ago had already taken down a few bootstrap nodes,” Buterin added

Moreover, the new EIP-4488 network upgrade will also help reduce the growing stress on the network by adding more security and protecting the network from reaching its alleged “breaking point.” The proposal, once approved, will allow miners to pause a transaction while they are being added to the block as soon as the calldata strikes its limit. 

The new network upgrade invites criticisms

The new solution suggested by Buterin that seeks to stabilize the explosive gas fee prices on the network has drawn criticism from Ethereum devs. 

The devs further explained that the new network upgrade may cause rollup transactions to drop, leading the users to pay an even higher total fee to reimburse for the lack of execution gas on transactions. 

“The additional constraint might require them to pay an even higher fee to outbid other rollups competing on the same calldata space,” the dev further added

Ethereum gas fee prices have been a source of constant distress for many investors who regularly use the network to conduct crypto transactions.