Glamsterdam: Final Tests
Ethereum's Glamsterdam Upgrade Enters Final Testing for Faster, Cheaper Layer 1 Transactions
Key Points
Glamsterdam is a combination of two earlier upgrade tracks—an execution-layer upgrade called “Amsterdam” and a consensus-layer upgrade called “Gloas”—rather than a single, standalone fork.
Ethereum development progress is being tracked in published GitHub notes from developer calls held between February and May 2026, describing ongoing experimentation with Glamsterdam features and discussions about which code changes are ready to advance to the next testing stage.
Ethereum Foundation developer Parithosh (Parithosh) Jayanthi said teams are already running devnets that include “all the EIPs in them right now,” describing the work as “the last phase before we work on hardening and then shipping the testnets,” adding there is “no fixed timeline” despite “massive progress.”
Glamsterdam is also framed as preparation for future zero-knowledge (ZK) scaling, with the upgrade’s scalability and efficiency work intended to support a ZK-oriented scaling roadmap.
Ethereum's next major upgrade, Glamsterdam, has entered its final phase of development, with teams now running test networks loaded with every planned protocol change. Unchained Crypto reported that Ethereum Foundation developer Parithosh Jayanthi confirmed the milestone, saying teams are running devnets "with all the EIPs in them right now" and calling it "the last phase before we work on hardening and then shipping the testnets."
If testing goes smoothly, Glamsterdam could activate on the Ethereum mainnet in the second half of 2026. Bitcoin News noted that developers are targeting a gas limit jump from 60 million to 200 million per block — a more than sixfold increase — which could slash L1 fees by as much as 78.6% and push simple trades below $1.
How Two Upgrades Merged Into One Giant Fork
Glamsterdam is not a single upgrade. It combines two separate development tracks: Amsterdam, which changes how Ethereum executes transactions, and Gloas, which updates the consensus layer that keeps the network in agreement. KuCoin described it as one of Ethereum's biggest protocol overhauls since the Merge in 2022.
Jayanthi called it "probably the largest fork we've had since the Merge." Development notes from calls held between February and May 2026 show ongoing testing of features and decisions about which code changes are ready to move forward, according to Daily Coin.
Block Construction Gets Moved Into the Core Protocol
One of Glamsterdam's biggest changes is called enshrined proposer-builder separation, or ePBS. Today, block construction relies on outside software called MEV-Boost, which requires validators to trust third-party relays. Glamsterdam moves that process directly into Ethereum's core protocol, cutting the risk of manipulation. Bitcoin News said this could reduce MEV-related abuse by up to 70%.
A second key change is block-level access lists. Before a block runs, it must declare which accounts and data it will touch. This lets computers pre-load the right data and process multiple transactions at the same time, rather than one by one. KuCoin said this enables parallel processing across multiple CPU cores.
Repricing Gas to Match Modern Hardware Costs
Glamsterdam also includes a sweeping repricing of gas costs. Gas is the fee users pay to run operations on Ethereum. The current pricing was set years ago and no longer reflects how much those operations actually cost to run. Under the new plan, heavy computation gets cheaper, while actions that bloat the chain's permanent storage get more expensive, according to Yahoo Tech.
Together, these changes are designed to make Ethereum faster and cheaper to use directly on Layer 1 — the base chain itself — rather than pushing all activity to Layer 2 networks. Unchained Crypto framed the upgrade as preparation for a future built around zero-knowledge scaling technology.
No Fixed Timeline, but Public Testnets Are Next
Jayanthi was careful not to set a hard date. He said there is "no fixed timeline" despite "massive progress." The next major milestones are activations on public test networks — Sepolia and Hoodi — before any mainnet launch. Daily Coin reported that developers also began parallel work on Ethereum's following upgrade, called Hegotá, in May 2026.
Not everyone is rushing. The Base engineering team publicly warned against adding too many features to this fork, citing the risk of delays well beyond 2026, according to Unchained Crypto. For now, the focus is on hardening the existing code before it goes in front of the wider public on testnets.
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