Ethereum’s upcoming network upgrade, designated as "Glamsterdam," is continuing its methodical rollout across the protocol’s testing environments. Following its successful activation on the Sepolia testnet on October 6, developers have officially scheduled the deployment for the Hoodi testnet. The upgrade represents a significant leap forward in Ethereum’s Layer 1 scaling roadmap, introducing major structural changes aimed at optimizing block production, improving execution efficiency, and better aligning gas economics with actual resource usage and state growth.
According to the release schedule, the Glamsterdam network upgrade is set to go live on the Hoodi testnet at epoch 132,352, corresponding to slot 4,235,264. This milestone is scheduled to occur on October 26, 2026, at precisely 17:42:48 UTC. Simultaneously, the network will implement a substantial increase to Hoodi’s gas limit, raising it to 200 million to mirror the parameters established during the Sepolia deployment. While testing on public networks is progressing rapidly, core developers have noted that a definitive activation date for the Ethereum mainnet has not yet been determined.
Node operators maintaining infrastructure on Hoodi are facing a mandatory software upgrade. Both execution layer and consensus layer clients must be updated to compatible versions before the activation epoch arrives. Client teams are actively releasing patched software versions, and node runners have been strongly advised to verify that their chosen releases explicitly support the Glamsterdam upgrade parameters for Hoodi before deploying updates to their nodes.
Glamsterdam Overview
The Glamsterdam upgrade is a comprehensive protocol overhaul that merges the Amsterdam execution layer upgrade with the Gloas consensus layer upgrade. At its core, the initiative introduces advanced mechanisms designed to alleviate network congestion and enhance throughput on the base layer. The most anticipated components of this upgrade are enshrined proposer-builder separation and block-level access lists, both of which fundamentally redefine how blocks are constructed, validated, and processed by the network.
Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation
One of the central pillars of the upgrade is the implementation of enshrined proposer-builder separation, commonly referred to as ePBS, via EIP-7732. Historically, the division of labor between block proposers and external block builders relied heavily on trusted middleware markets. EPBS integrates this separation directly into the consensus protocol of Ethereum, creating a native pathway where a block proposer includes a builder’s cryptographic commitment to an execution payload, and the builder subsequently reveals the payload itself.
This protocol-level integration streamlines the economic exchange between proposers and builders while providing built-in guarantees for payment settlement. Furthermore, ePBS decouples consensus validation from execution validation, granting network validators additional breathing room to thoroughly evaluate execution payloads. To ensure accountability, a designated payload timeliness committee will attest to whether builders successfully reveal their payloads and ensure that the corresponding blob data remains available on time. Validator operators and engineering teams maintaining builder infrastructure are encouraged to review these revised operational duties and interface specifications ahead of time.
Block-Level Access Lists
Complementing ePBS is the introduction of enforced block-level access lists under EIP-7928. These lists systematically record all accounts and storage locations that are accessed throughout the duration of a block, alongside the resulting post-transaction state changes. By providing this structured data upfront, execution clients gain the capability to read state from disk in parallel, validate transactions simultaneously, and compute state roots with greater computational efficiency. Together, ePBS and block-level access lists establish a robust foundation for scaling Ethereum’s native execution capacity while ensuring that running a validator remains practically feasible for independent operators.
Gas Pricing and State Growth
Glamsterdam also introduces critical adjustments to gas accounting to ensure that transaction fees more accurately reflect the true resource burden placed on the network. EIP-8037 increases and separately meters the financial and computational cost of creating new state, while EIP-8038 updates the baseline costs associated with state access. Additional refinements modify intrinsic transaction gas parameters, calldata handling, access lists, and overarching block gas accounting metrics.
Application developers are urged to rigorously test their smart contracts and gas estimation logic against these revised rules. DApps that depend on fixed gas stipends, hardcoded transaction gas limits, or rigid assumptions regarding remaining gas execution margins may experience failures and will likely require code modifications. Comprehensive tooling and search utilities have been made available via developer guidance portals to help teams identify affected smart contracts prior to mainnet deployment.
Developer and Validator Improvements
Beyond its headline architectural changes, the upgrade packs a variety of developer-friendly enhancements and protocol refinements. These include native Ethereum transfer logs, a dedicated slot-number opcode, an expanded maximum contract size limit, a deterministic factory contract, and newly introduced stack-manipulation instructions. On the consensus side, the protocol adopts forward-compatible data structures, implements rules to exclude slashed validators from proposing new blocks, and increases the churn limits for validator exits and consolidations to improve network flexibility.
Security and Bug Bounty Coverage
To ensure the robustness of the upgrade, the Ethereum Bug Bounty Program has been extended to cover all Glamsterdam specifications and associated EIPs. Client implementations become eligible for bug bounty rewards as soon as their respective Hoodi-compatible releases are published. Security researchers and developers looking to participate can reference the official Ethereum bug bounty documentation for details regarding reward multipliers, submission guidelines, and vulnerability reporting requirements.
Deployment Schedule and Next Steps
The formal deployment timeline establishes Sepolia as the initial proving ground, having activated the upgrade on October 6, 2026, at epoch 353,024 and slot 11,296,768. The Hoodi testnet follows on October 26, 2026, raising the network gas limit to 200 million. Mainnet activation parameters remain TBD and will be formally scheduled by core developers once testnet stability has been fully verified.
Node operators, stakers, and application developers must remain vigilant, updating their software stacks and monitoring official communications as the Hoodi activation approaches. While mainnet users and standard ETH holders do not need to take any direct action for this testnet event, the broader ecosystem continues its steady progression toward a more scalable and efficient Ethereum mainnet.
Ethereum & Smart Contracts
Ethereum & Smart Contracts
Ethereum & Smart Contracts
