Glamsterdam: How Ethereum continues to evolve

Ethereum’s next upgrade targets bottlenecks in how data is processed, built, and stored.

Perhaps because it happens regularly, we have now become accustomed to something quite remarkable in its own right – Ethereum’s continuing upgrades. According to the published roadmap, before the end of this year, thousands of computers run by people who have never met will once again switch to a new set of rules at the same instant. No one will press a button, and no company will oversee it. The network will keep producing blocks as it does today, and on the other side of this switch, it will be able to do more.

That is how every Ethereum upgrade works, and this one is called Glamsterdam. To see why it matters, it helps to start with what Ethereum is.

Ethereum in a minute

Ethereum is a public network run by thousands of independent computers that keep a shared record of who owns what. Because no single company operates it, anyone can build on it. Developers do that with smart contracts, programs stored on the network that run exactly as written, so payments, markets, and apps can work without a middleman. Every action costs gas, a measure of the computing work a transaction requires, and each block, the network’s batch of transactions, can hold only so much of it.

Two kinds of activity have become central. Stablecoins are tokens designed to hold a steady value, usually one US dollar. Tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs, are traditional holdings such as government bonds, money-market funds and gold, recorded as tokens on a blockchain. Alongside them sit layer 2 networks, separate networks built on top of Ethereum that process transactions in bulk and post the results back to it.

Why a successful network keeps changing

Ethereum’s success is also its challenge. Stablecoins now total roughly $300 billion across dozens of networks, and Ethereum holds about half of that supply, more than any other network. It is also the largest network for tokenized real-world assets, with roughly a third of that market as of February 2026, including funds launched by asset managers such as BlackRock and JPMorgan.

When that much value settles in one place, the network has to keep getting faster, sturdier and cheaper to run, without giving up the openness that makes it trustworthy. Three bottlenecks stand in the way. Ethereum processes transactions one after another because it cannot tell in advance which accounts each one will touch. Block building is rushed: the handoff between the builders who assemble blocks and the validators who check them runs through outside software and is squeezed into about two seconds. And the network’s database keeps growing, since every new account and contract adds permanent data that every node must store. Left unchecked, that would make running a node ever more demanding and shrink the circle of people who can do it.

How Ethereum upgrades itself in the open

Ethereum answers problems like these through upgrades, and it does so in public. Developers propose new rules, and the people running nodes choose whether to install them. At a scheduled moment, the network switches over together, and a node that has not updated cannot follow the chain afterward. That is why every upgrade is rehearsed on public test networks first. Addresses and funds stay on the same chain before and after.

The work follows a published roadmap on ethereum.org, which has set out long-term goals for scaling, cost, and security since the Merge in September 2022, when Ethereum switched from mining to staking. It has arrived one chapter at a time. Shapella in April 2023 brought staking withdrawals. Dencun in March 2024 made rollup data much cheaper, lowering fees on layer 2 networks. Pectra in May 2025 improved accounts and staking, and Fusaka in December 2025 advanced data availability. 

Dates are never fixed in advance. Each upgrade goes live only once testing is complete and developers agree it is ready, which is why dates are confirmed late.

What is Glamsterdam?

Glamsterdam is the next chapter. Ethereum names its upgrades in pairs. The execution layer, where transactions run, takes the name of a Devcon or Devconnect host city, and the consensus layer, where validators agree on blocks, takes the name of a star. Amsterdam and Gloas, shipping together, became Glamsterdam.

Its goal is to let Ethereum’s base layer handle more activity. The headline changes alter how blocks are produced and validated, and the upgrade also adjusts gas pricing. The package contains 18 changes, listed in EIP-7773, and three of them answer the three bottlenecks in turn.

Work in parallel, not in line. Block-level access lists let each block declare in advance which accounts and stored data it will touch. Think of a kitchen that receives the whole order list before it starts cooking. Dishes that share no ingredients can be prepared at the same time.

Block building inside the rules. Enshrined proposer-builder separation moves the handoff between builders and validators into Ethereum’s own rules, replacing outside relay software. It also stretches the window for spreading block data from about two seconds to about nine, giving validators time to handle larger blocks reliably.

Growth that stays sustainable. Sending ETH or a token to a brand-new address, or into a contract that writes new storage, adds permanent data that every node must keep. Glamsterdam rebalances gas pricing so that creating and reading stored data reflects its real burden on node hardware. That is what makes a higher gas limit safe. Developers are aiming for a limit of around 200 million, roughly three times the base throughput the network supports today. That figure is a target and test setting, not a mainnet commitment.

What it means for transaction costs

The rebalancing cuts both ways. Creating new accounts or deploying contracts will cost more, because that data is stored permanently. Everyday transfers get lighter. According to ethereum.org, one change, EIP-2780, lowers the base cost of a simple ETH transfer between existing accounts by up to 71%, and ethereum.org says fees will most likely fall for everyday users. How much any individual transaction changes will depend on what it does and on network demand.

Will it make Ethereum faster, and what about layer 2s?

Glamsterdam is mainly about Ethereum’s base layer. Parallel processing and a higher gas limit are meant to let Ethereum do more directly, rather than pushing all growth onto layer 2s. They will benefit more indirectly. The longer propagation window is designed to let the network carry more blobs, the data packets that layer 2s post to Ethereum, which means more room for them to settle. A smaller change, EIP-7997, lets developers deploy apps and wallets to the same address across participating networks, which helps people who use several layer 2s.

How much congestion relief this brings depends on real-world activity after launch, and no one can promise a figure. ethereum.org itself calls Glamsterdam “a single step” in a longer roadmap.

How it got here: rehearsals doing their job

Glamsterdam went live on the Sepolia test network on October 6. A second rehearsal on the Hoodi test network was scheduled for October 26. On October 22, developers postponed it after security researchers showed that proposed gas-accounting changes could alter how some existing smart contracts handle failed calls. The findings concern how existing software would behave under proposed rules, and no exploitation of a live protocol has been reported. Catching an issue like this before mainnet is exactly what rehearsals are for. Older articles may still list October 26 as an activation date, but that applied only to the Hoodi test network.

Each test network runs on its own schedule, separate from mainnet, and the mainnet date will be set only once testing is complete.  Once the test on Hoodi is completed, which is the final scheduled test, we expect to have a date for the mainnet activation.

What it means for Ethereum users

For most people, the answer is simple. The Ethereum Foundation states that ETH holders and mainnet users do not need to take any action. Balances and addresses stay the same, and updated wallets and infrastructure handle the changes. Wallet and infrastructure providers must update how they estimate gas, because tools built on fixed gas assumptions will underestimate costs and can produce failed transactions. That work is what developers are testing now.

On the set date for mainnet activation, the switch will look the way this story began: thousands of independent computers changing rules together, and a network that keeps running. Glamsterdam aims for a network that carries more activity while staying open to anyone who wants to run it.