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The problem on Ethereum is not that it's limited, the EVM is capable of handling it. The problem here is that there is a cap of how much gas[1] a block may con
by tscs37 10y ago
The problem on Ethereum is not that it's limited, the EVM is capable of handling it.
The problem here is that there is a cap of how much gas[1] a block may consume which is the moving average of consumed gas plus some extra.
A few contracts got stuck that way; by getting to a point where they could no longer use that much gas.
[1]: Gas in Ethereum refers to the amount of value paid for computation, once gas runs out the execution is terminated and the gas subtracted from the senders account.
- mikeash 10y agoI've heard of gas, but I'm not entirely familiar with the cap. I thought it was determined by how much the contract wanted to spend. Are you saying there's a fixed cap as well?
- tscs37 10y agoUpfront all transactions must pay for the computation they expect to have. The user (or whatever) decided how much has may be spent. When the transaction runs, gas is consumed. If the transaction finished or there is no more gas, computation stops. Now, transactions have no limit but blocks of transactions have. This is to prevent a single person creating and mining gigantic transaction to stall the network. This limit is dynamic and you can raise it by having the network use more gas until the moving average climbs high enough.
- mikeash 10y agoMakes sense, thanks for explaining! Basing the limit on the moving average is an interesting choice and I wonder what sort of long-term consequences it will have on people's behavior. Seems like there's some potential for weird feedback loops.