Ethereum's Glamsterdam Upgrade Launches on Sepolia Testnet

Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade went live on the Sepolia public testnet on Tuesday at 13:53 UTC, as planned. The upgrade introduces several key improvements to Ethereum's base layer, including enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS), block-level access lists, and new gas pricing mechanisms. These changes aim to enhance the network's capacity and efficiency before reaching the mainnet.

The Glamsterdam upgrade follows the Fusaka upgrade from last year and is part of Ethereum's L1 scaling roadmap. The main features modify how blocks are built and processed. With ePBS, the handoff between block proposers and builders is integrated into the protocol itself. Block-level access lists track which accounts and storage a block affects, allowing for more efficient state root computations and parallel transaction validation.

The upgrade also adjusts gas pricing to better reflect the load on nodes from execution and state growth. Additionally, Sepolia testnet validators can now experiment with a higher block gas limit. Prysm 7.2.1 and Teku 26.9.1 clients default to a 200 million gas limit post-activation. The next steps include the Hoodi testnet, but activation dates for both Hoodi and the mainnet have yet to be decided. Ethereum.org currently lists mainnet deployment as expected in the fourth quarter.