Ethereum Tests 200M Gas Limit on Sepolia Testnet
Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet activated the Glamsterdam upgrade on October 6 at 13:53:36 UTC, allowing validators to increase the block gas limit target from 60 million to 200 million. This move triples the network’s capacity, enabling a public stress test. The Prysm consensus client released version 7.2.1 the day before, ensuring validators automatically proposed blocks at the 200 million setting once the fork triggered at epoch 353,024. Operators running the earlier 7.2.0 version would have defaulted to 60 million gas unless they manually adjusted their proposer configuration.
The higher gas limit does not directly lower individual transaction fees but creates more space for transactions, swaps, and smart contract interactions during high demand. Ethereum’s mainnet raised its gas limit to 60 million in November 2022 after validators supported the change. Glamsterdam builds on this by introducing pricing adjustments, such as Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 8037, which ties gas costs more closely to the amount of permanent state data created. This combination aims to increase execution throughput while controlling state growth.
Sepolia is not the first environment to test Glamsterdam at this level. Devnet 11, a controlled development network, previously tested the 200 million gas limit with 84,000 validators. Ethereum Foundation developer Parithosh Jayanthi noted that high-level computation would become cheaper under the new pricing model, while state creation would become more expensive. Developers have warned that contracts relying on fixed gas assumptions or 2,300-gas stipends may need modifications before Glamsterdam reaches the mainnet.
The timing of Prysm’s update ensured consistent exposure to larger blocks during the stress test. Other clients, like Teku, remained at 60 million gas unless manually configured. Sepolia provides a public testnet environment, offering conditions closer to the mainnet. The activation dates for the Hoodi testnet and mainnet remain undecided, with further announcements expected after client teams agree on the deployments.