Glamsterdam repricing, rewriting the gas schedule
Strawmap Glamsterdam (Early 2027) · Glamsterdam repricing
It reprices the gas for reading, writing and creating accounts and storage to match their actual cost. The base gas of 21,000 that every transaction paid identically is also split by the resource actually used.
Why it is needed
Gas converts the time and resources a node spends processing a transaction into a price. The prices for reading and writing accounts and storage have stayed the same since the Berlin fork in 2021. Since then state has grown a lot and reads and writes have become slower, but the price is the same, so state access has become too cheap compared with other opcodes. Growing state is a problem too. As of January 2026, the state of a Geth node is about 390 GiB, and after the gas limit rose to 60M, the new state created per day increased more than threefold. If the limit were raised to 200M as is, the network would cross the 650 GiB mark, where node performance starts to degrade, within a year. This item raises the price of reading and writing state to match measured processing times. The cost of growing state is unified at 1,530 gas per byte and counted separately from execution gas. The numbers were finalized on the developer call in August 2026, and the relative prices between opcodes are now fixed, so from here on only the block limit will be adjusted. It is groundwork that holds state growth in check while opening up the 200M gas limit for Glamsterdam. The Strawmap expects the Glamsterdam fork in early 2027, but this is not a confirmed schedule.
How it works
- Raise the price of reading and writing state (EIP-8038) It reprices account and storage costs by splitting them into three components: access, write and creation. The first account access in a transaction rises from 2,600 to 3,000, and a storage slot write rises from about 2,800 to 10,000. A storage slot read stays at 2,100.
- Count the cost of growing state separately (EIP-8037) Operations that grow state, such as new accounts, new storage slots and contract code, are charged 1,530 gas per byte. This state gas is counted separately from execution gas, so the block gas limit can be raised further while state growth stays held in check.
- Split the base gas of 21,000 by resource (EIP-2780) The base gas that every transaction paid identically is divided into signature verification, account access, balance update and new account creation. An ETH transfer to an existing account stays at 21,000, and only a transaction that creates a new account pays an extra state growth cost.