What is the Glamsterdam upgrade?

The Glamsterdam upgrade is the Ethereum network upgrade planned to follow Fusaka. Its name joins Amsterdam, the execution layer part, with Gloas, the consensus layer part named after a star. Where Fusaka focused on room for layer 2 data, ethereum.org says Glamsterdam aims to scale layer 1 itself through parallel processing, more time for blocks to spread and better pricing of state growth.

What is ePBS in Ethereum Glamsterdam?

Proposer-builder separation splits block production into two jobs. Builders assemble the list of transactions, and proposers, who are validators, choose the winning bid. Ethereum.org explains that this lets ordinary validators share in MEV without running specialized software.

Today that handoff runs through off-protocol relays and middleware such as MEV-Boost. ePBS, defined in EIP-7732, moves the exchange of block for payment into the protocol itself. Ethereum.org says it also adds a Payload Timeliness Committee and two deadlines, stretching the window for spreading block data across the network from about 2 seconds to about 9 seconds.

What are block-level access lists?

A block-level access list (EIP-7928) is a map of the parts of Ethereum's state a block will touch, along with their values after execution. A hash of it goes in the block header. With that map, nodes can see which transactions do not overlap and process them at the same time. Nodes catching up can also apply final results instead of replaying every transaction.

What else does Glamsterdam change?

Ethereum.org lists several gas and fee changes:

• EIP-2780 lowers the base cost of simple ETH transfers between existing accounts by up to 71%, with a surcharge for creating new accounts.
• EIP-8037 ties the cost of creating state to the size of the permanent data, targeting about 120 GiB of state growth a year.
• EIP-8038 raises gas costs for some state-access operations to match their real cost.

It also says Glamsterdam enables a 200 million gas limit floor, raises the contract size limit from about 24 KiB to 64 KiB, and makes ETH transfers emit logs. The scope was frozen but could still change before mainnet. Background on gas is in what are gas fees.

When is the Glamsterdam mainnet date?

There is none yet. ForkLog reported that Glamsterdam activated on Sepolia on October 6, 2026. The Hoodi testnet fork was scheduled for October 26, but the Ethereum Foundation postponed it on October 22 so developers could study how EIP-8037 interacts with smart contracts already on mainnet. The delay also removed the planned 200 million gas limit increase on Hoodi. Ethereum.org still listed a Q4 2026 mainnet target, unconfirmed.

ETH holders do not need to do anything. Ethereum.org warns that anyone asking you to "upgrade" your ETH is running a scam. Node operators and stakers will need updated client software once a date is set.