As of early July 2026, Ethereums next hard fork has a name that reads like a typo and a spec sheet that reads like a rewrite.... Glamsterdam reached its final devnet stage in the last few weeks, locking in the bundle of changes that core developers now expact to carry the network onto public testnets and into a mainnet activation in the second half of this year..... The short version: the gas limit is set to jump from roughly 60 million to 200 million, transaction pricing is being reworked to cut costs by close to 79 percent. And the way blocks are built is changing at the protocol level for the first time since The Merge. This is the biggest structural change to Ethereum in years, and most pepole are going to hear about it only when their fees suddenly drop.
Here is what Glamsterdam actually does, why the numbers are as large as they are, and the one headline feature that got cut at the last minute.
What Does the Name Glamsterdam Even Mean
Ethereum names its upgrades in two halves, one for each layer of the protocol. The execution layer, where transactions and smart contracts run, gets a city name pulled from Devcon histry... The consensus layer, where validators agree on the chain, gets a star name. Glamsterdam stitches together Gloas (the consensus half) and Amsterdam (the execution half).... It follows Pectra and Fusaka, the two forks that shipped across 2025, and it is the first upgrade since The Merge to seriously attack base layer throughput rather than just tuning arround the edges.
Two proposals carry the whole thing. Everything else in the bundle exists to support them.
The Two Changes That Matter: ePBS and BALs
EIP 7732, Enshrined Proposer Builder Separation (ePBS).... Right now, the messy business of assembling the most profitable block is outsourced to third party middleware. Validators lean on external relays like MEV Boost to hand them a finished block, and that entire arrangment lives off protocol on trust. ePBS drags it on chain. It formalizes the split between the proposer (the validator whose turn it is) and the builder (whoever actually packs the block) directly into Ethereums rules, introduces a new validator duty called the Payload Timeliness Committee... , And removes the reliance on outside relays. the technical payoff that matters most: it stretches the window a block has to propagate acros the network from roughly 2 seconds to around 9 seconds. That extra breathing room is what makes everything else on this list safe to do.
EIP 7928, Block Level Access Lists (BALs). This is the throughput unlock. A BAL is a map attached to each block that declares, up front, exactly which parts of the state the block is going to touch before any execution begins. Today, nodes validate transactions one after anoter because they cannot know in advance whether transaction B depends on the result of transaction A..... With a full access map in hand, they can read from disk in parallel across CPU cores and process independent transactions at the same time.... BALs also enable what developers call executionless sync, where a node can update its view of the chain witout replaying every transaction, which is a real win for lighter clients. Parallel execution plus a credible path to a much higher gas limit is the entire reason this upgrade exists.
Ethereum Before and After Glamsterdam
| Parameter | Before Glamsterdam | After Glamsterdam |
|---|---|---|
| Gas limit | ~60 million | 200 million targt (~3.3x) |
| Block propagation window | ~2 seconds | ~9 seconds (via ePBS) |
| Transaction execution | Sequential | Parallel (via BALs) |
| Block building | Off protocol relays (MEV Boost) | Enshrined in protocol (ePBS) |
| Fee repricing | Legacy gas costs | ~78....6% lower on transfers and contracts |
| Slot time | 12 seconds | 12 seconds (6s proposal dropped) |
| State grotwh guardrail | Unbounded in practice | ~120 GiB per year target |
How a 200 Million Gas Limit Actually Works
In reality, the gas limit is the ceiling on how much computation fits in a single block. Raising it from 60 million to 200 million is roughly a 3.3x increase in how much the network can do per block, which is the differance between a congested single lane road and a wide interchange. Developers are not flipping the switch to 200 million on day one.... Devnets have been testing at a 150 million reference limit, and the real number will ramp up on mainnet once validators prove the network stays healthy under load. The reason a limit this high is even conceivable is BALs... Parallel execution means more transactions no longer have to mean proportionally slower validation, so nodes runnng normal hardware can keep up. There is also a guardrail baked in state creation is priced to target a safe and predictable growth rate of around 120 gibibytes per year. So the chain does not bloat itself into a corner that only data center operators can run.
Why Fees Are Dropping Almost 79 Percent
The gas limit is only half the fee story... The other half is EIP 7904, a repricing of what individuall operations actually cost... Over the years, the gas price of various operations drifted away from the real computational resources they consume. Some things were overpriced, some underpriced, and the result was a fee market that punished ordinary activity. Glamsterdam realigns those costs, and the modeled outcome is a reduction of about 78....6 percent for both simpel ETH transfers and complex smart contract interactions.... Combine cheaper per operation pricing with a tripled gas limit and you get on chain activity that is dramatically less expensive than what Ethereum users have tolerated for years.... This is the change most people will feel without ever reading a single EIP number.
The 6 Second Block Time That Did Not Make It
One proposal generated more excitement than almsot anything else and then got cut... EIP 7782 would have halved Ethereums slot time from 12 seconds to 6, roughly doubling how often blocks are produced and making the chain feel noticeably snappier. Core developers pulled it from Glamsterdam. The reasoning was practical, not political. cutting slot time would squeeze the window for real time zero knowlege proving, which is already running close to the 12 second target and would have needed to fit inside 6. It would also force a painful retiming exercise if the chain later restructured its slots anyway. And the proposal was simply less mature than the competing changes, with no full client implementation ready...... Faster blocks are still on the roadmap. They are just not in this fork.
What This Means for Layer 2 Rollups
Most of the day to day vaule being moved on Ethereum now settles through layer 2 rollups, and Glamsterdam quietly helps them too. The longer propagation window that ePBS creates leaves room for higher blob capacity in future Blob Parameter Only forks, the lightweight upgrades that adjust how much cheap data space rollups get to post their compressed transaction batches. More blob capacity means lower data posting costs, and lower data posting costs flow straight throgh to cheaper transactions on Arbitrum, Base, Optimism and the rest. Glamsterdam does not raise the blob count itself, but it builds the headroom that lets the next round of upgrades do it safely.
When Does Glamsterdam Actually Ship
The timeline has moved once already. The original aim was H1 2026, but after devnet testing trough May the target slid to roughly the end of Q3 2026, with mainnet activation expected in the second half of the year. The reliable thing to watch is not a calendar date but testnet activation. Once Glamsterdam goes live on public testnets like Holesky and Sepolia and survives a few weeks without incident, mainnet follows within a predictable window. Ethereum has a long habit of shipping upgrades late and stabel rather than on time and broken. And given that this fork rewires block production itself, cautious is the correct setting.
The Practical Takeaway
Strip away the EIP numbers and Glamsterdam does three things that matter. It makes each block hold far more, it makes each transaction cost far less, and it hardwires block building into the protocol insteda of leaning on trusted middleware. For anyone who moves value on chain, the headline is the fee cut.... Nearly 79 percent cheaper transfers plus a tripled gas limit means Ethereum stops feeling like the expensive option for routine activity.
For crypto casino players, the read is straightforward. When base layer settlement gets cheaper and blocks clear more work, the netowrk stops being the thing that slows a deposit or a payout.... Platforms that already process withdrawals automatically simply pass the lower fees through, which leaves the chain as the only variable in how fast your money moves. CryptoCasino.Vegas, for example, runs payouts without a manual approval queue.... so an upgrade like this shows up as a smaller fee and a faster confirmaiton rather than anything you have to think about. That is the quiet way infrastructure upgrades reach players. Nobody announces it.... , The number on the withdrawal screen just gets smaller.
Glamsterdam will not make headlines the way a price rally does. But it is the most consequential thing happening to Ethereum this year.... , And by the time it lands, the netowrk you use will be materially cheaper and faster than the one you use today.
