What's in the Glamsterdam Upgrade
Ethereum Korea One: Genesis · Day 2 · 2026-09-29 · 28:14 · In Korean
Almost nothing changes right away when Glamsterdam goes live. So why does it matter? At Ethereum Korea One: Genesis, Hudson Jang of Four Pillars explains Ethereum's next upgrade in plain terms.
Speakers
- Hudson Jang, SRE & Tech Researcher, Four Pillars
About this session
A talk by Hudson Jang, a researcher and validator engineer, on what is inside the Glamsterdam upgrade. Starting from the big picture of the Strawmap and CROPS, he explains why L1 scaling has hit a wall again, what the two headliners ePBS and BAL change, and the gas repricing that builders should check.
Key takeaways
- The previous upgrade, Fusaka (December 3, 2025), was L2-focused, using PeerDAS (EIP-7594) to expand data space for L2s. Glamsterdam carries 18 proposals that lay the groundwork for L1 scaling. Its name combines Gloas on the consensus layer and Amsterdam on the execution layer.
- The Strawmap, published in February, sets five North Stars toward 2029: Fast L1 (slots from 12 seconds to 6, 4 and 2, and finality from about 16 minutes to seconds), Gigagas L1, Teragas L2, quantum resistance and Private L1. The roadmap can change, but CROPS (censorship resistance, open source, privacy, security) names the values that should not.
- The per-block gas limit doubled from 30M to 60M over the past year, with 200M as the next target, but block propagation time and sequential execution are now the wall. Glamsterdam therefore does not immediately shorten block times or raise the gas limit. It is a structural fix that enables further scaling.
- ePBS (EIP-7732) brings block building, where 4 to 5 builders currently produce over 95% of blocks outside the protocol, into the protocol. Like circulating a shipping label instead of the whole box, consensus no longer has to carry the full block, so blocks can grow. BAL (EIP-7928) attaches a map of the state each transaction touches, enabling parallel execution, faster state root computation and faster node sync.
- The change that hits builders most directly is gas repricing (7 or 8 proposals, including EIP-2780, 8037 and 8038). Contracts or tools with hardcoded gas values may break after the fork, so he urged checking them after Glamsterdam goes live on Sepolia on October 6. Originally slated for the first half of 2026, the upgrade slipped after ePBS, the biggest structural change since the move to PoS, ran into trouble on testnets. The path now runs through Sepolia and Hoodi, with mainnet targeted for early December.
- FOCIL (EIP-7805) and slot shortening were pushed to the next fork, Hegotá. In his personal reading, frame transactions (EIP-8141), which bring account abstraction into the protocol, became Hegotá's headliner because they make it easier to swap signature algorithms for a quantum-resistant transition. In the Q&A, he said Ethereum is not built for HFT, but the days of $200 to $300 per transfer are unlikely to return.
Chapters
- Opening and speaker introduction
- From Fusaka to Glamsterdam
- The Strawmap, five North Stars and CROPS
- Why L1 scaling again
- Testnet and mainnet timeline
- 18 proposals and the headliner ePBS
- BAL and parallel execution
- Gas repricing and developer-experience EIPs
- Moved to Hegotá: FOCIL, slot shortening, frame transactions
- Q&A: financial firms and gas fees