Quick Take

Exponential gas limit increase proposal.
Court bans OFAC from sanctioning Tornado Cash.
DEF petition for Tornado Cash developers.
EOF is removed from Fusaka.

EIP-9698: Exponential Gas Limit Increase

Ethereum researcher Dankrad Feist introduced EIP-9698, a proposal to exponentially increase Ethereum’s gas limit by 100x over the next four years. The plan begins with a starting gas limit of 50 million on June 1, 2025. Under the proposed schedule, the gas limit would grow to 5 billion gas per block after four years. The proposal does not change Ethereum’s consensus rules, but instead modifies default client behavior. Clients will automatically vote to raise the gas limit at each beacon chain epoch, following a deterministic exponential schedule, unless manually overridden by the user. The proposal replaces manual gas limit voting with a predictable and transparent schedule.

Court Bars OFAC From Sanctioning Tornado Cash

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman permanently barred the Treasury’s OFAC agency from reimposing sanctions on Tornado Cash. The decision follows a November 2024 Fifth Circuit ruling that found OFAC exceeded its authority when it sanctioned Tornado Cash smart contracts, after which OFAC removed Tornado Cash from the SDN list. However, OFAC claimed it did so at its own discretion, leaving open the possibility of future sanctions. The federal court rejected OFAC’s argument and issued a final judgment prohibiting re-sanctioning. While the sanctions have been lifted, criminal charges against Tornado Cash developers remain ongoing.

DEF Petition For Tornado Cash Developers

The DeFi Education Fund (DEF) launched a petition urging the Trump administration to end its criminal prosecution against open-source software developer Roman Storm. The DeFi Education Fund says that the Biden-era DOJ adopted an unprecedented legal theory that unfairly holds developers liable for how others use their code, even when they have no control over users. The group says that the prosecution contradicts FinCEN guidance issued during Trump’s previous term, which made clear that self-custodial, peer-to-peer protocol developers are not money transmitters.

EOF Removed From Fusaka

During Interop Testing #34, Ethereum core developers made a final decision to exclude EOF from the Fusaka hard fork. Tim Beiko cited split community support, the urgent need to ship PeerDAS, unclear implications of the proposed EOF variant, and process shortcomings within ACD as key reasons for its removal. Developers will now shift focus to PeerDAS and scalability. Previously excluded from Dencun, EOF may be reconsidered in a future upgrade such as Glamsterdam. Going forward, core devs aim to prioritize developer needs and strong consensus in EIP decisions