Ethereum’s highly anticipated Glamsterdam upgrade is moving into its final development and testing stages and is shaping up to be one of the most significant protocol changes since the network’s transition to Proof-of-Stake in 2022.
Developers are targeting a substantial increase in Layer 1 capacity while overhauling how gas costs are calculated — changes that the Ethereum Foundation has warned could break some wallets, indexers, and gas estimation tools if they are not updated in time.
What Is Glamsterdam?
Glamsterdam combines two coordinated upgrades: Gloas — consensus layer — and Amsterdam — execution layer.
The name reflects this dual focus.
Core developers have repeatedly described it as the largest structural overhaul of Ethereum since the Merge, designed to prepare the base layer for much higher future demand.
The upgrade’s primary goal is to strengthen L1 scaling so the network can handle significantly more activity without relying solely on Layer 2 solutions.
A key target is raising the gas limit toward a 200 million floor, from the current range around 60 million, which would roughly triple block capacity under realistic conditions and support higher effective throughput.
Major Technical Changes
Two headline features drive the scaling ambitions:
- Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation — ePBS / EIP-7732
Moves the separation of block proposers and builders directly into the protocol. This reduces reliance on off-chain relays and aims to improve decentralization and fairness in block production. - Block-Level Access Lists — EIP-7928
Allows the network to better understand transaction dependencies in advance, enabling safer parallel processing of unrelated transactions.
A cluster of gas-repricing EIPs, including EIP-8037 and related proposals, forms another core part of the package.
These changes introduce a separate “state gas” dimension for operations that create new blockchain state, such as creating a new account, deploying code, or writing a fresh storage slot.
As a result, a simple ETH transfer to an existing account will still cost around 21,000 gas, but sending ETH to a newaccount will incur additional state-gas costs charged at runtime.
Other adjustments reprice certain operations to better match actual resource usage and remove previous bottlenecks that made higher gas limits risky.
Additional improvements include increases to maximum contract and initcode sizes.
Ethereum Foundation Warning: Some Tools May Break
The Ethereum Foundation’s Protocol DevOps team has issued a clear warning: any wallets, indexers, or gas estimators that rely on a hardcoded maximum gas limit or assume every ETH transfer always costs exactly 21,000 gas will break after the upgrade.
Developers are strongly encouraged to update their software and test thoroughly on the new Platåberget public testnet, launched around mid-August 2026.
The Glamsterdam fork is scheduled to activate on Platåberget around August 20, giving the community several months of testing before the changes move to longer-lived testnets such as Sepolia and Hoodi, and eventually mainnet.
Timeline and Current Status
Glamsterdam originally targeted an earlier 2026 window but has been delayed to the fourth quarter of 2026 to allow more thorough testing.
Public testnet work is now underway, with mainnet activation expected later in the year once multi-client stability is confirmed.
In parallel, developers have already begun reviewing dozens of proposals for the subsequent upgrade, Hegotá, expected in 2027.
What This Means for Users and the Ecosystem
For everyday users, successful implementation of Glamsterdam should eventually mean higher L1 capacity, potentially lower fees during peak demand, and a more robust foundation for future scaling.
However, in the short term, anyone using or building wallets, portfolio trackers, gas calculators, or indexers must ensure their tools are updated.
At Quickex.io, we are monitoring the upgrade closely. As always, users should keep their software current and stay informed about network changes that could affect transaction costs or tool compatibility.
Glamsterdam represents a major step in Ethereum’s long-term roadmap toward a more scalable and efficient base layer.
While the path to mainnet still requires careful testing, the direction is clear: prepare Ethereum for significantly higher load in the years ahead.