EIP-8429 Proposes Quadratic Gas Fees to Curb Manipulative Trading Bots on Ethereum

Developer 'staccoverflow' introduced EIP-8429 on September 29, 2026, aiming to mitigate bot manipulation by increasing gas costs for repetitive smart contract interactions. The proposal suggests a quadratic gas surcharge for recurring calls to the same contract, inspired by observed activity on the Robinhood Chain where automated accounts dominated network traffic and extracted value from retail users. To discourage these practices, the EIP requires irrevocable account registration and implements a dual-counter system to track interaction frequency. Under the proposal, 50% of the additional gas fees would be permanently locked, while the remaining 50% would be held by a contract-designated address, with block producers receiving no portion of the surcharge.