Ethereum developers have entered the final stretch of work on Glamsterdam, the network's next major upgrade, as teams begin testing a developer network (devnet) that includes the full suite of planned Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). This phase precedes code hardening and deployment to public testnets.
“We’re working on devnets with all the EIPs in them right now,” said Parithosh Jayanthi, a core developer and DevOps engineer at the Ethereum Foundation. “This is the last phase before we work on hardening and then shipping the testnets. There’s no fixed timeline, but we’ve made massive progress.” Glamsterdam is currently expected to go live during the second half of 2026, though a firm activation date has not been set.
Biggest Fork Since The Merge
Jayanthi described Glamsterdam as “probably the largest fork we’ve had since the Merge,” adding that it will “change a lot of assumptions about Ethereum and set us up for much more scaling in the future.” The upgrade introduces several headline changes: enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS, EIP-7732), Block-level Access Lists (EIP-7928), and a sweeping set of gas repricings.
ePBS brings the separation of block builders and proposers into Ethereum's core protocol, reducing opportunities for manipulation around maximal extractable value (MEV). Block-level Access Lists allow blocks to declare which accounts and contract data they will access in advance, enabling preloading and faster, more predictable execution.
Gas Fee Overhaul
The gas repricings will alter the economics of using Ethereum. “High-level compute gets cheaper and state gets more expensive,” Jayanthi said, explaining the changes aim to align fees with actual resource consumption and make the network easier to scale with zero-knowledge proofs. Developers are currently focused on testing, finalizing specifications, and community outreach regarding the repricings. “Mostly testing, finalizing specs, outreach to the community about repricings and then shipping it,” Jayanthi summarized.