Ethereum's biggest upgrade since the Merge is closer than most realize

Glamsterdam, @ethereum's next major hard fork, has reached its final devnet stage with ten Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) locked in. Core developers call it the most significant protocol change since The Merge.

Two EIPs Driving the Upgrade

Two proposals sit at the heart of the upgrade. Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS), defined in EIP-7732, integrates the block-building process directly into the Ethereum protocol. This removes the current 80 to 90 percent reliance on third-party relays like MEV-Boost, reducing centralization risks and ensuring a fairer, more transparent distribution of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV).

The second headliner is EIP-7928, Block-Level Access Lists (BALs). Block-level Access Lists let blocks declare the accounts and state they will touch, enabling faster parallel execution and raising the L1 transactions-per-second ceiling.

Beyond the two headliners, the package also contains EIP-7708 (ETH transfers and burns emit a log), EIP-7778 (block gas accounting without refunds), EIP-7843 (a SLOTNUM opcode), EIP-7954 (raising the maximum contract size from roughly 24 KiB to 32 KiB), EIP-7975 (eth/70 partial block receipt lists), EIP-8024 (backward-compatible SWAPN, DUPN and EXCHANGE opcodes), EIP-8037 (state-creation gas-cost increase), and EIP-8159 (eth/71 Block Access List Exchange).

Gas Limit and Timeline

Together, the two headline proposals clear a path toward a dramatically higher gas ceiling. The 200 million gas limit is the design target for what Glamsterdam unblocks, not a value the fork itself enforces. Validators set the limit via standard gas-vote signaling, which they currently coordinate around the 60 million range, and would step it up only as nodes prove they can handle the larger blocks without degraded propagation.

The final devnet is the last major engineering phase before client releases, security reviews, and public testnets. Holesky and Hoodi will fork before mainnet, and only after multi-client stability holds for several epochs across those networks. Past forks have run two to four months of public-testnet seasoning, putting a mainnet window broadly between September and December 2026.

Ethereum Foundation contributors note Glamsterdam is proving trickier and slower than Fusaka, so a slip remains possible. No firm mainnet activation slot has been set. What is clear is that $ETH's base layer, if the upgrade lands on schedule, will be materially more capable heading into 2027.

Sources:
The Defiant: Ethereum's Glamsterdam Upgrade Enters Final Devnet Phase
Datawallet: Ethereum Glamsterdam Upgrade and EIPs Explained
Kiln: Glamsterdam, Ethereum's Next Hard Fork Explained