Ethereum Glamsterdam: The final fitting before the most significant hard fork since The Merge
Ethereum developers have entered the decisive phase of preparation for the Glamsterdam upgrade. Teams are now launching so-called "devnets" — early test environments where new code is verified before being released on public testnets. These devnets already include the full set of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) planned for the hard fork.
Essentially, this is the final fitting. In development terms, it is the last stage before the code freeze and subsequent deployment on test networks. An exact activation date is not yet available, but according to consensus among independent analysts, the most likely window for the Glamsterdam launch appears to be the end of August 2026.
Why is Glamsterdam not just a routine update?
In my assessment, this is truly the most ambitious upgrade since the transition to Proof-of-Stake (The Merge) in 2022. It lays the architectural foundation for the future scaling of the network and fundamentally changes several core mechanisms.
Key changes: ePBS, access lists, and a new gas economy
The first and most significant innovation is embedded proposer-builder separation (ePBS, EIP-7732). Today, this process largely relies on external services, creating risks of centralization and "additional trust assumptions." Implementing ePBS moves this mechanism into the core protocol, which should significantly reduce opportunities for manipulation related to maximal extractable value (MEV). This is a step toward a fairer and more decentralized environment for validators.
The second important change is block-level access lists (EIP-7928). They allow clients to declare in advance which data and contracts a block will access. This enables nodes to preload information, making transaction execution faster, more predictable, and easier to optimize.
Finally, Glamsterdam includes a comprehensive gas cost revaluation package. This is perhaps the most subtle and critical aspect. The goal is to more accurately reflect the actual resource consumption of various operations. High-level computations (e.g., cryptographic work) will become cheaper, while state operations (e.g., reading and writing to storage) will become more expensive. This lays the correct economic model for future scaling using zero-knowledge proof systems (ZK-rollups).
My professional opinion: Glamsterdam is not just an update, but a paradigm shift. ePBS strikes at the centralization of MEV, while the gas revaluation prepares the ground for the era of ZK-proofs. If the teams manage to implement the plan without issues, we will witness the birth of a much more mature and resilient Ethereum. This upgrade deserves closer attention than any other in the next two years.