Ethereum's EIP-7781 proposal suggests a reduction in the blockchain’s slot time from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. This change aims to boost transaction throughput while maintaining the current block size.
Slot time refers to the interval at which new blocks are proposed on the Ethereum network. By shortening this interval, Ethereum can produce more blocks more frequently, thereby increasing the network’s overall efficiency.
Researcher Ben Adams, who is behind the proposal, emphasizes that the objective is to reduce latency for rollups, which are Layer 2 scaling solutions. This adjustment is expected to increase transaction throughput by about 33%.
This proposal's approach is similar to increasing the gas limit per block from 30 million to 40 million or expanding blob capacity from 6 to 8. However, EIP-7781 intends to achieve these benefits without raising peak bandwidth requirements, thus avoiding resource strain.
If adopted, the proposal will shorten the slot time without increasing the gas limit per block or blob capacity. Since the block size will remain unchanged, the peak bandwidth—the maximum data transfer rate at any moment—will not increase.
The proposal is currently under preliminary review and discussion, as part of Ethereum’s ongoing efforts to improve network scalability.
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