Ethereum, a leading blockchain platform, is constantly evolving to enhance its performance and scalability. A new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP), identified as EIP-7781, was introduced on October 5 by Ben Adams, co-founder of Illyriad Games. This proposal aims to significantly increase Ethereum’s transaction throughput by reducing the network’s slot time from 12 seconds to 9 seconds. The primary objective is to achieve a 33% increase in transaction throughput.
Understanding the Motivation Behind EIP-7781
The motivation for proposing EIP-7781 lies in optimizing bandwidth usage over time. By smoothing out bandwidth demands, the Ethereum network can maintain higher efficiency and reduce stress on node operators, especially those with limited bandwidth capacity. Ben Adams emphasized that this adjustment is crafted to enhance throughput without compromising the network’s accessibility.
Feasibility of the Ethereum Improvement Proposal
In his official GitHub proposal, Adams explained, “Reducing Ethereum’s slot time from 12 seconds to 9 seconds can reduce rollup latency and increase transaction throughput by approximately 33% without increasing individual block or blob counts. This would distribute bandwidth usage over time, lowering peak bandwidth requirements while maintaining network efficiency.”
The successful implementation of EIP-7781 depends on two other EIPs—EIP-7623 and EIP-7778. These proposals are crucial to ensuring the network’s stability under the increased block production rate. They are designed to mitigate potential negative effects of the slot time reduction, such as increased orphan rates or network instability.
Balancing Throughput and Network Accessibility
EIP-7781 seeks to strike a balance between throughput and network accessibility by maintaining node efficiency without overburdening the system. This balance is essential for upholding Ethereum’s decentralized ethos, allowing participants with varying infrastructure sophistication to continue running nodes.
Prominent Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake expressed cautious support for the proposal. In a comment, Drake stated, “My initial reaction would be to support reducing slot times to 8 seconds for a few reasons: It increases throughput by 1/2, an effective increase to a 45M gas limit and 9 blob limit. This roughly aligns with the proposed 40M gas limit by pumpthegas.org and the 8 blob limit by Vitalik and others.”
Cautious Optimism and Potential Drawbacks
Drake highlighted benefits for decentralized exchanges (DEXs), noting that the change could make DEXs like Uniswap v3 “roughly 1.22x more efficient,” potentially saving around $100 million in centralized exchange (CEX)-DEX arbitrage annually. However, Drake also pointed out a possible drawback: “One downside of reducing slot times is that it will make timing games slightly more acute because of the slot-to-ping ratio decrease. Assuming an 80ms ping time and a 9s slot time, the slot-to-ping ratio would still be healthy.”
Adam Cochran, a partner at CEHV, also expressed support, albeit with caution, specifically regarding smaller stakers. He wrote on X, “Honestly this seems reasonable in terms of bandwidth on solo stakers too as long as the gas limit per block stays the same. 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.”
Concerns from the Ethereum Community
Despite the optimistic outlook from some community members, not all voices are in full agreement. A pseudonymous researcher, 0xSmit, raised concerns about the impact on existing smart contracts that rely on a 12-second block time. According to him, “Lots of contracts have hard-coded the value of a year in blocks based on 12-second block times. It might break things if this passes, especially for contracts without upgrade mechanisms.”
As of the latest update, Ethereum’s price is trading at $2,463, reflecting the market’s anticipation and caution towards the proposed changes.
