Meta description: Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade targets a 3x increase in execution capacity, pushing gas limits toward 200M per block via parallel execution and ePBS changes.
Focus keyword: Ethereum Glamsterdam upgrade 2026
Category: Ethereum News (15)
Ethereum’s next major network upgrade, known as Glamsterdam, is shaping up to be the most significant change to the protocol’s execution layer since the Merge in 2022. Expected to ship in the coming months — with Q3 2026 cited as a reasonable target by infrastructure firm Figment — the upgrade aims to roughly triple Ethereum’s execution capacity and lay the groundwork for the kind of throughput that could finally challenge high-performance competitors like Solana.
What Is Glamsterdam?
Glamsterdam is a hard fork that combines two major streams of development: changes originally scoped for the “Gloas” upgrade and the “Amsterdam” upgrade, hence the portmanteau name. The Ethereum core developer community approved the combined scope on a recent AllCoreDevs call, prioritizing execution layer improvements over the Pectra-era focus on the consensus and staking layers.
The upgrade encompasses several core Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that together address structural bottlenecks in how the network processes transactions.
The Big Number: From 60M to 200M Gas Per Block
The most headline-grabbing element of Glamsterdam is the proposed increase in the gas limit target. Currently, Ethereum’s practical gas limit hovers around 60 million per 12-second block. Under Glamsterdam, core developers are targeting 200 million — a roughly 3x increase in raw throughput capacity.
Lead developer Tim Beiko confirmed the 200M target in community discussions, noting that final repricing numbers will be confirmed on upcoming AllCoreDevs calls. If achieved, this would allow significantly more transactions to fit into every block, directly reducing congestion and gas fees during peak periods.
Parallel Execution: The Architecture Shift
The capacity increase doesn’t come from simply increasing the gas limit number in isolation — that alone would create instability. Instead, it’s enabled by a structural shift toward parallel transaction execution.
Glamsterdam introduces mandatory block-level access lists, a mechanism that forces transactions to pre-declare which state they will read from and write to. With this information available upfront, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) can process multiple non-conflicting transactions simultaneously rather than sequentially.
This is similar to how modern database systems handle concurrent reads and writes — transactions that touch different state are processed in parallel, while those with overlapping state are queued appropriately. The result is dramatically higher throughput without sacrificing correctness.
KuCoin research noted that this approach represents a “fundamental rethinking of Ethereum’s execution model” — moving from a serial processing architecture toward one that can genuinely scale on Layer 1.
ePBS and BAL: The Supporting Cast
Beyond parallel execution, Glamsterdam introduces two other significant changes:
Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS) moves the relationship between block proposers (validators) and block builders (entities that construct the actual transaction ordering) from off-chain relay infrastructure into the protocol itself. Currently, Ethereum relies on third-party relay networks like Flashbots to manage this relationship — a trust assumption that creates centralization risk. ePBS removes that dependency.
Block-level Access Lists (BAL) are the technical mechanism that makes parallel execution possible. By requiring transactions to specify their state dependencies ahead of execution, the protocol can schedule work more efficiently and eliminate the “just-in-time” state access patterns that force sequential processing.
What This Means for L2s and the Broader Ecosystem
Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base have dominated Ethereum’s scaling narrative since 2023. Glamsterdam doesn’t make L2s irrelevant — but it does change the calculus.
A 3x increase in L1 capacity means that certain use cases which previously had to migrate off-chain for cost or speed reasons could return to mainnet. This is particularly relevant for DeFi protocols that depend on atomic composability — the ability for multiple smart contracts to interact in a single transaction — which is harder to guarantee across L2 bridges.
“Meaningful L1 scaling requires moving away from off-protocol trust assumptions and serial processing,” the Ethereum Foundation noted in its roadmap documentation for Glamsterdam. The upgrade is designed to ensure that as the network increases capacity, performance remains sustainable.
Timeline and What Comes Next
Testing on Glamsterdam has begun, but no exact mainnet date has been set. Community estimates point to Q3 2026, with June sometimes referenced as an aspirational target in developer documentation — though core developers have emphasized that no timeline is locked in until testing is complete.
Following Glamsterdam, the next fork in the queue is codenamed Hegotá, which will continue work on further scaling improvements.
For ETH holders and DeFi users, Glamsterdam represents a meaningful reason for optimism heading into the second half of 2026 — particularly given Ethereum’s recent price underperformance relative to Bitcoin and Solana. A successful upgrade that demonstrably increases network utility could serve as a significant catalyst.
FAQ
What is the Ethereum Glamsterdam upgrade?
Glamsterdam is Ethereum’s next major hard fork, combining changes from the planned “Gloas” and “Amsterdam” upgrades. It focuses on the execution layer, introducing parallel transaction processing, enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS), and block-level access lists. The upgrade targets a 3x increase in gas limit capacity, from around 60 million to 200 million per block.
When will Glamsterdam launch?
No exact mainnet date has been confirmed. Testing is underway, and the Ethereum developer community points to Q3 2026 as a reasonable estimate, with some documentation referencing June as an aspirational target. Final confirmation will come after AllCoreDevs review and successful testnet deployment.
How does Glamsterdam differ from Ethereum’s previous upgrades?
Unlike the Merge (proof-of-stake transition) and Pectra (staking and EVM improvements), Glamsterdam focuses specifically on execution layer throughput. It introduces parallel transaction processing — a structural change that allows the network to handle multiple non-conflicting transactions simultaneously, enabling the gas limit increase without compromising stability.
*Sources: Ethereum Foundation roadmap documentation, The Defiant, KuCoin Research, Figment Insights, Phemex Blog, BingX Learn*
