Ethereum proposal ‘EIP-7781’ calls for slot time reduction from 12 to 8 seconds to boost transaction throughput

A new Ethereum proposal, EIP-7781, suggests reducing the blockchain’s slot time from 12 seconds to 8 seconds.

Slot time refers to the interval at which new blocks are proposed on the Ethereum network. Shortening this interval would produce more blocks more frequently, increasing the network’s overall efficiency.

In the proposal , researcher Ben Adams highlighted that the objective is to lower latency for rollups — Layer 2 scaling solutions that leverage the sequencing capabilities of the Ethereum mainnet — while boosting transaction throughput by about 33%.

This method is akin to increasing the gas limit per block from 30 million to 40 million or expanding blob capacity from 6 to 8. However, according to the proposal, it aims to achieve these benefits without raising peak bandwidth requirements that strain resources.

If adopted, the proposal would shorten the slot time rather than increase the gas limit per block or blob capacity. Since the size of each block remains unchanged, the peak bandwidth — the maximum data transfer rate needed at any moment — would not rise.

The proposal is under preliminary review and discussion as part of Ethereum’s continuous efforts to improve network scalability.