Prysm Updates Gas Limit Before Glamsterdam Sepolia Testnet Upgrade

Offchain Labs, the team behind the Prysm Ethereum consensus client, released version 7.2.1 just hours before the Glamsterdam upgrade was set to activate on the Sepolia testnet. This update ensures that Prysm validators will default to a 200 million gas limit once the fork goes live, a significant increase from the previous 60 million limit in version 7.2.0.

The Glamsterdam upgrade is scheduled to activate on Sepolia at epoch 353,024, or 13:53:36 UTC on October 6, 2026. The upgrade was announced by the Ethereum Foundation and includes a higher gas limit as part of EIP-8261, which was finalized after Prysm had already released version 7.2.0.

Version 7.2.1 eliminates the need for manual configuration for validators, as the higher gas limit is now set by default. However, operators who have previously set a gas limit flag will override the 200 million limit, and the client now warns them about this at startup. The higher gas limit allows for more transactions per block but increases the load on nodes.

The release also introduces partial data columns by default, enabling nodes to trade individual cells of blob data, and fixes a bug related to the first post-fork block. Despite this, Teku, another consensus client, still defaults to a 60 million gas limit, requiring manual adjustments for the higher limit.