Even as Ethereum is developing layer 2 (L2) solutions, its co-founder Vitalik Buterin has stressed the need to increase the layer 1 (L1) capacity of the Ethereum network. In a blog post published on February 14, Buterin argued for the need to increase the Ethereum gas limit from 30 million to more than 36 million.

As reported by CoinTelegraph, Buterin’s arguments centered around the importance of L1 capacity for network censorship resistance, L2 interoperability, and basic security features.

He believes that while increasing the gas limit (i.e., more transactions that can be processed per block) may accelerate state growth and lead to centralization risks in full node operations due to higher resource requirements, such an increase is still critical.

Discussing the role of Ethereum’s base layer as a fallback for L2 failures, Buterin warned that current capacity may not be able to handle large-scale withdrawals in the event of a major L2 system crash. He estimated that without optimization, Ethereum would need to scale several times (perhaps up to 9 times) to effectively manage large-scale withdrawals.

Buterin also pointed out the challenges of interoperability between L2s, especially for low-volume assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which often need to be routed through L1. He estimated that L1 capacity would need to be increased by 5.5 times to reduce the cost of such transfers to acceptable levels.

Additionally, Buterin expressed concerns about security, specifically regarding the issuance of ERC-20 tokens on L2. He suggested maintaining the issuance of ERC-20 tokens on L1 to reduce the risk of hostile governance changes on L2 platforms that could lead to unlimited token minting and affect the broader ecosystem.

Ethereum has been struggling with high gas fees and network congestion, which has prompted it to shift to a rollup-centric roadmap and adopt L2 solutions. While this approach has alleviated some congestion and reduced transaction costs, it has also led to a decline in fee revenue on the Ethereum mainnet, which recently fell below $1 million for the first time since September.

To address these challenges, Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, scheduled for April 8, aims to further improve scalability. The upgrade plans to double the target number of “blobs” per block and introduce a staker voting mechanism to make such adjustments, similar to the current process by which Ethereum validators vote on gas limits.