Ethereum Core Developers Postpone Glamsterdam Upgrade on Hoodi Testnet Indefinitely

Ethereum core developers have officially announced the postponement of the highly anticipated Glamsterdam network upgrade on the Hoodi testnet, which was previously scheduled to take place on October 26, 2026, at 17:42:48 UTC, corresponding to epoch 132,352. At present, a new activation date has not been determined, and the update immediately supersedes all prior schedules and deployment instructions outlined in the original Hoodi testnet announcement.

The decision to delay the rollout was reached during All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) meeting #248. According to the technical consensus reached by the core development teams, additional time is urgently required to thoroughly investigate how the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 8037 interacts with existing smart contracts deployed on the mainnet. By pressing pause on the current testnet timeline, developers aim to mitigate any unforeseen technical friction, security vulnerabilities, or unintended consequences before pushing the upgrade forward in a live environment.

What Has Changed?

The indefinite delay brings significant structural adjustments to the Hoodi testnet’s immediate roadmap. Most notably, the postponement removes the scheduled Amsterdam execution layer activation and the Gloas consensus layer activation. In addition, the planned adjustments to the network’s gas-limit schedule—which would have dramatically raised Hoodi’s gas limit to 200 million at the exact same epoch—have also been entirely removed from the upcoming configuration.

It is important for developers and network participants to understand that this action merely rolls back the configuration parameters set for the forthcoming upgrade; it does not in any way revert the historical ledger or chain history of the Hoodi testnet. The October 26 activation date is completely off the table, and the updated network configuration contains no replacement activation epoch or timestamp. The core development teams intend to announce the scheduling of a replacement upgrade at a later date, once investigations surrounding EIP-8037 are fully concluded and satisfactory solutions are verified.

Hoodi Node and Validator Operators

For individuals and organizations operating a Hoodi node or validator, immediate action is required to verify both execution and consensus layer client setups to ensure they reflect the postponed activation status well ahead of the original October 26 target. Any software installations or custom network configurations that still hardcode or schedule the Glamsterdam upgrade for the original activation time must be manually updated to align with the newly revised Hoodi network configuration.

Operators are explicitly warned not to treat the client release tables or advisory notes found in earlier announcements as confirmation that those specific software versions incorporate the latest postponement. Instead, validator and node operators must closely follow their respective client team’s official release notes and specific instructions regarding the revised Hoodi schedule. Furthermore, validator operators utilizing external block-building infrastructure must carefully review any guidance provided for their validator clients and associated builder tooling to avoid consensus misalignments.

Client Releases

As client development teams work to release software updates that formally incorporate the postponed Hoodi activation, operators are urged to monitor official channels closely. Both execution and consensus layer clients must be updated to software releases whose accompanying documentation explicitly confirms that the October 26 Glamsterdam activation on Hoodi has been successfully removed.

Within the consensus layer ecosystem, validators must ensure that both their consensus layer beacon nodes and validator clients are kept completely in sync. While various client implementations prepare their respective patches, specific updates are already rolling out. For instance, Lodestar has released version v1.50.1 to address the configuration changes, while other client teams continue to evaluate and build out their corresponding software packages. Operators should routinely check for newly published releases across the broader ecosystem, including client teams handling execution layer software, as additional tooling guidance and builder-specific instructions are confirmed and integrated into the ecosystem’s workflow.

Application Developers and Mainnet Users

Application developers who rely on the Hoodi testnet for pre-production environments must adjust their testing pipelines accordingly and should no longer plan their development cycles around an October 26 Glamsterdam activation. A revised timeline and a new activation schedule for the testnet will be communicated broadly through official Ethereum developer channels as soon as they are finalized.

It is worth emphasizing that this announcement is strictly localized to the Hoodi testnet. This postponement does not establish or affect any Glamsterdam mainnet activation date, and no technical action, wallet updates, or precautionary measures are required from standard Ethereum mainnet users or everyday ETH holders as a result of this development network adjustment.