diff --git a/blockstack/lib/config.py b/blockstack/lib/config.py
index <HASH>..<HASH> 100644
--- a/blockstack/lib/config.py
+++ b/blockstack/lib/config.py
@@ -141,7 +141,7 @@ RPC_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT = 30  # in secs
 RPC_MAX_ZONEFILE_LEN = 40960     # 40KB
 RPC_MAX_INDEXING_DELAY = 2 * 3600   # 2 hours; maximum amount of time before the absence of new blocks causes the node to stop responding
 
-MAX_RPC_LEN = RPC_MAX_ZONEFILE_LEN * 10    # maximum blockstackd RPC length
+MAX_RPC_LEN = RPC_MAX_ZONEFILE_LEN * 250    # maximum blockstackd RPC length == 100 zone files, base64-encoded (assume 1.33x overhead for encoding, plus extra XML)
 if os.environ.get("BLOCKSTACK_TEST_MAX_RPC_LEN"):
     MAX_RPC_LEN = int(os.environ.get("BLOCKSTACK_TEST_MAX_RPC_LEN"))
     print("Overriding MAX_RPC_LEN to {}".format(MAX_RPC_LEN))
make the max RPC length equal to the expected amount of space <I> fully-loaded zone files take when encoded