Ethereum's Glamsterdam hard fork — a combined execution-layer (Amsterdam) and consensus-layer (Gloas) upgrade — has entered its final devnet phase with a 200-million gas-limit floor target, more than 3x the current ~60 million ceiling. Core developers confirmed in mid-June 2026 that multi-client ...
"This is probably the largest fork we've had since the Merge." — Parithosh Jayanthi, Ethereum Foundation Devops Engineer
Ethereum's Glamsterdam hard fork — a combined execution-layer (Amsterdam) and consensus-layer (Gloas) upgrade — has entered its final devnet phase with a 200-million gas-limit floor target, more than 3x the current ~60 million ceiling. Core developers confirmed in mid-June 2026 that multi-client devnets (devnet-5 and devnet-6) are running the full slate of planned EIPs. The original June mainnet target has slipped to Q3 2026, with Everstake's June technical review citing end of August as the current best estimate.
The upgrade carries two headline proposals: Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS, EIP-7732), which moves block-building rules into the consensus layer and eliminates mandatory reliance on third-party relays like MEV-Boost; and Block-Level Access Lists (BALs, EIP-7928), which map transaction dependencies upfront and enable parallel execution. A sweeping set of gas repricings — including EIP-8037 (state creation cost increase) and EIP-2780 (71% reduction in basic ETH transfer costs) — will fundamentally alter Ethereum's on-chain economics. The net effect: compute gets cheaper, state growth gets more expensive, and L1 throughput scales without unbounded database bloat.
The stakes are material. Ethereum processes $2.73 billion in annual transaction fees, hosts 1.24 million validators staking 39.7 million ETH (~33% of circulating supply), and anchors $37 billion in Layer-2 rollup assets. Glamsterdam is the most ambitious protocol change since the September 2022 Merge.
Over 100 Ethereum core contributors gathered in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, for the Soldøgn Interop in late April/early May 2026 — a week-long sprint that produced three outcomes: alignment on the 200M post-Glamsterdam gas-limit floor, stable ePBS implementations running with external builders, and final EIP-8037 repricing parameters locked in. The interop concluded with a stable multi-client devnet running the latest ePBS, repricing, and block access list specifications.
By mid-June, the upgrade reached its final devnet stage. Devnet-5 launched around June 4; devnet-6 followed in mid-June. According to Parithosh Jayanthi, Ethereum Foundation devops engineer, the current phase is "the last phase before we work on hardening and then shipping" to public testnets. The Ethereum Foundation confirmed in a blog post that the upgrade has been pushed from June to Q3 2026.
The development timeline post-devnet includes: client releases, security audits, deployment to public testnets (Sepolia, Holesky), and mainnet activation. Leadership transitions have also accompanied the process — Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik were named new Protocol cluster leads, while Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko departed and Alex Stokes took a sabbatical.
EIP-7732 introduces Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation directly into Ethereum's consensus layer. The proposal formalizes the separation between the validator that proposes a block and the builder that constructs its execution payload — a function currently handled off-protocol by MEV-Boost relays.
The relay centralization problem is quantifiable. As of June 16, 2026, according to Relayscan data, the top five relays controlled the following payload distribution shares: relay.ultrasound.money (35.49%), titanrelay.xyz (22.94%), bloxroute.max-profit (13.85%), bloxroute.regulated (12.24%), and aestus.live (8.39%). On the builder side, concentration is starker: Titan held 47.76% of blocks, followed by Quasar (19.99%), beaverbuild.org (16.36%), and BuilderNet (10.70%).
ePBS addresses this by expanding the data propagation window from approximately 2 seconds to approximately 9 seconds — critical headroom for larger payloads under the new gas limit. The upgrade introduces a Payload Timeliness Committee (PTC) and dual-deadline logic to manage the extended window. Once active, third-party relays become optional rather than required infrastructure.
The economic implications are significant. MEV-Boost relays currently mediate builder payments to proposers. By moving this settlement on-chain, the protocol reduces a systemic single-point-of-failure risk that has concerned researchers since the relay ecosystem consolidated post-Merge.
EIP-7928 introduces Block-Level Access Lists (BALs), which require blocks to declare accounts and smart-contract storage slots accessed by each transaction upfront. This enables Ethereum clients to identify independent transactions and process them in parallel rather than sequentially.
The proposal is accompanied by EIP-8159, which introduces the eth/71 Block Access List Exchange protocol for efficient dissemination of access list data between nodes. BALs also enable "executionless sync," where nodes can synchronize faster by verifying state transitions without re-executing every transaction.
For context, Ethereum processed a record 2.89 million transactions in a single day in February 2026, and Q1 2026 saw 200.4 million total transactions — a 43% quarter-over-quarter increase, according to KuCoin research data. Parallel execution capacity is no longer theoretical demand; L1 throughput requirements are growing despite the L2 migration.
Glamsterdam's gas repricing package is the most consequential set of fee changes since EIP-1559. The core principle: align gas costs with actual resource consumption. Two EIPs drive the structural change.
EIP-8037: State Creation Gas Cost Increase. This proposal introduces a fixed cost-per-state-byte (CPSB) framework targeting a state database growth rate of 120 GiB per year. Contract deployment costs rise approximately 10x; new account creation increases approximately 8.5x. The mechanism uses a "reservoir model" — state gas charges draw from a state_gas_reservoir first, providing predictable cost floors. Without EIP-8037, scaling to 200M gas would produce unsustainable state growth.
EIP-8038: State-Access Gas Cost Update. This complementary proposal increases gas costs for state-access opcodes (EXTCODESIZE, EXTCODECOPY) to align with modern hardware performance benchmarks.
EIP-2780: Reduce Intrinsic Transaction Gas. Moving in the opposite direction for basic operations, EIP-2780 reduces the intrinsic base cost of a transaction from 21,000 to 4,500 gas, making a standard ETH transfer between existing accounts up to 71% cheaper. The revised gas cost for a simple ETH transfer drops to approximately 6,000 gas. If a non-create transaction targets a non-existent account, an additional 25,000 gas charge applies to price in state growth and align with CALL-based account creation.
The net effect is a deliberate rebalancing: frequent, lightweight operations (transfers, reads) become cheaper; state-expanding operations (contract deployments, new accounts) become more expensive. The ethereum.org community account summarized the design: compute gets cheaper, state gets more expensive.
The 200-million gas limit floor represents a 233% increase from the current ~60 million limit. The Ethereum Foundation described reaching this figure as "a credible post-Glamsterdam target" in its Soldøgn recap. Benchmarking data from the interop anchors the number in empirical testing rather than aspiration.
The gas limit increase is structurally dependent on the other Glamsterdam EIPs. Without ePBS expanding the propagation window, larger blocks would risk increased orphan rates and centralization pressure on validators with lower bandwidth. Without BALs enabling parallel execution, higher gas limits would push block processing times past safe thresholds. Without EIP-8037's state repricing, 200M gas would accelerate state growth beyond sustainable levels.
EIP-8037's cost-per-state-byte model targets approximately 60 GiB of state growth per year at 300M gas — providing headroom above the 200M floor while maintaining the 120 GiB/year ceiling at the initial target.
Current Ethereum network statistics provide context for the upgrade's impact:
| Metric | Value | Source | |--------|-------|--------| | Circulating supply | ~120.68M ETH | Etherscan (June 27, 2026) | | Total staked | 39.67M ETH (~33% of supply) | Beaconcha.in (June 15, 2026) | | Active validators | 1,239,795 | Beaconcha.in (June 15, 2026) | | New validators (2026 YTD) | ~96,462 | News.bitcoin.com | | Annual transaction fees | $2.73B | CoinLaw / DefiLlama | | Daily gas revenue | ~$6.3M | CoinLaw | | Average gas price | ~0.16 gwei (April 2026 low) | KuCoin research | | Q1 2026 transactions | 200.4M (+43% QoQ) | KuCoin research | | Single-day transaction record | 2.89M (Feb 2026) | KuCoin research | | L2 rollup assets | >$37B | CoinLaw | | L2 share of tx throughput | ~95% | CoinLaw | | ETH price | ~$2,005 | CoinStats (June 2026) | | Annual inflation rate | ~0.23% | Binance research | | Daily validator issuance | ~1,700 ETH | Ethereum.org |
Ethereum's fee revenue has declined from peak daily levels of $23 million to approximately $6.3 million, driven by the post-Dencun shift of L2 data to blob space. The network's supply has grown by approximately 950,000 ETH since the Merge, making it slightly inflationary in the current low-fee environment, according to 21Shares research.
Beyond the three headline proposals, Glamsterdam includes several additional EIPs:
Several additional proposals (EIP-7778, EIP-7843, EIP-7976, EIP-7981, EIP-8024, EIP-7954) remain under consideration, per ethereum.org.
Glamsterdam represents a structural reconfiguration of Ethereum's execution, consensus, and fee layers. The upgrade attempts to solve three problems simultaneously: relay centralization (ePBS), sequential processing bottlenecks (BALs), and misaligned gas pricing (EIP-8037/8038/2780). The 200M gas limit is the visible output; the prerequisite engineering across six EIPs is the substance.
The timeline risk is real. Shipping the upgrade by August requires clean testnet runs, security audits, and client coordination across an ecosystem with over 1.2 million validators. Leadership transitions at the Ethereum Foundation add organizational complexity. Whether Q3 holds depends on testnet performance in July.
For infrastructure operators, DeFi protocols, and institutional participants holding 39.7 million staked ETH, the operational changes are material: relay configurations will shift, gas cost assumptions in smart contracts will change, and deployment economics will reset. The upgrade's economic impact — cheaper transfers, more expensive state creation, higher throughput — will be measurable in on-chain fee data within weeks of activation.