Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade goes live on Sepolia testnet ahead of mainnet
In brief
- Glamsterdam went live on Sepolia Tuesday at 1:53 pm UTC, per contributor Pooja Ranjan.
- Headline changes: enshrined proposer-builder separation (EIP-7732) and block-level access lists (EIP-7928).
- Hoodi testnet date comes first; developers will then set a mainnet date.
- Hegotá is slated as the next major upgrade once Glamsterdam reaches mainnet.
What Glamsterdam changes
Glamsterdam is the next major upgrade after Fusaka. It's designed to improve scalability, harden the layer-1 and make the network easier to use, Cointelegraph reported.
A Sept. 28 Ethereum Foundation blog post, as cited by Cointelegraph, says the upgrade aims to advance Ethereum's layer-1 scaling roadmap with enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS), block-level access lists (BALs) and gas pricing changes that better reflect execution cost. The first two are the headliners. Both change how blocks get produced and validated.
EIP-7732 (that's ePBS) separates block proposers from builders inside Ethereum's consensus protocol. It also splits consensus validation from execution validation, which gives validators more time to validate execution payloads.
Why parallel processing matters
Cointelegraph described Ethereum as running in single-lane mode today (transactions get processed in a single order). Parallel processing is meant to change that, going after higher transactions per second and bigger blocks without raising the gas limit.
That's where EIP-7928 comes in.
The proposal introduces enforced block-level access lists that record the accounts and storage locations accessed during a block, along with post-transaction state changes. With those lists, clients can read state from disk in parallel, validate transactions in parallel and compute state roots more efficiently.
There's a gas limit target too. In a May blog post, the Ethereum Foundation said it had set a 200 million gas limit floor for Glamsterdam, compared with a current limit of around 60 million, according to Cointelegraph.
What comes after Sepolia
Next up is Hoodi. Developers will determine Glamsterdam's activation date on the Hoodi testnet before setting a mainnet launch date, and they haven't announced either one yet.
Once Glamsterdam reaches mainnet, Ethereum developers will begin implementing Hegotá as the next major upgrade. Scoping for that one started in August, when developers began reviewing 66 proposals (several of them aimed at adding privacy capabilities to the protocol).
Frequently asked questions
When will Glamsterdam activate on Ethereum mainnet?
There's no mainnet date yet. After the Sepolia launch, developers will determine Glamsterdam's activation date on the Hoodi testnet first, and only then set the final mainnet launch date.
What does enshrined proposer-builder separation (EIP-7732) do?
EIP-7732 separates block proposers from builders in Ethereum's consensus protocol. It also separates consensus validation from execution validation, giving validators more time to validate execution payloads.
How do block-level access lists (EIP-7928) help Ethereum scale?
EIP-7928 introduces enforced lists recording the accounts and storage locations accessed during a block, plus post-transaction state changes. Clients can use them to read state from disk in parallel, validate transactions in parallel and compute state roots more efficiently.
What is Ethereum's next upgrade after Glamsterdam?
Hegotá is next. Developers will begin implementing it after Glamsterdam's mainnet activation. In August they started reviewing 66 proposals while scoping it, several aimed at adding privacy capabilities to the protocol.
