Ethereum is about to go faster. A lot faster. Glamsterdam – the hard fork merging the Glasgow and Amsterdam upgrade tracks – is targeting a June 2026 deployment, and the numbers are striking: throughput triples, the gas limit jumps from 60 million to 200 million per block, and fees on Layer 1 could fall to single-digit cents.
It’s the biggest architectural shift Ethereum has attempted since the Merge. Here’s what’s actually changing.
what’s Glamsterdam?
Glamsterdam is a hard fork that introduces several interlocking Ethereum Improvement Proposals, the most significant of which center on parallel transaction execution and a major increase in the gas limit. The two headline changes are Block-Level Access Lists (BALs) and Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS).
Block-Level Access Lists require each transaction to declare upfront which storage slots and accounts it’ll touch. That sounds minor. It isn’t. This one change lets the EVM run non-conflicting transactions simultaneously rather than one-at-a-time – proper parallel execution, for the first time, at Layer 1.
EPBS tackles a different problem. Today, block proposers (validators) and block builders (MEV searchers) interact through off-chain MEV-boost relay infrastructure that operates outside the protocol. EPBS brings that relationship on-chain, baking the proposer-builder split directly into consensus. The result is better censorship resistance and cleaner economics for validators.
The Gas Limit Jump: From 60 Million to 200 Million
The most immediately tangible effect of Glamsterdam will be felt in gas capacity. Hasu, a researcher and advisor at Lido Finance, noted in a widely cited post that the upgrade is targeting a gas limit increase from the current approximately 60 million per block to nearly 200 million – a 3.3x jump.
More gas per block means more transactions per block. Layer-2 rollups have been absorbing Ethereum’s throughput overflow for years – Glamsterdam raises the base layer’s ceiling so that overflow becomes less.
“Glamsterdam is the first time Ethereum is seriously competing with its own Layer-2 system on raw throughput,” one developer wrote on the Ethereum Magicians forum. “It changes the fee calculus for a lot of use cases.”
For ordinary users, that means cheap Layer-1 swaps and transfers again. Single-digit-cent gas fees during normal conditions. Something the network hasn’t seen since 2020.
Why This Matters for Ethereum’s Investment Case
Solana, Avalanche, and a wave of newer Layer-1 chains have spent the past two years hammering Ethereum for being slow and expensive. That criticism has real teeth. Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base process more daily transactions than Ethereum mainnet itself – but the cost and friction of bridging between layers has remained a genuine problem for regular users.
Glamsterdam doesn’t abandon the rollup strategy, but it does meaningfully raise Layer-1’s own capacity. Analysts at MarketScreener noted that the upgrade “reshapes the blockchain’s long-term scaling narrative” and could boost the investment case for ETH as a productive asset.
Ethereum’s price has lagged Bitcoin’s through 2026, battered by the same macro sell-off hitting altcoins. A successful Glamsterdam deployment gives ETH something it currently lacks: a near-term spark tied to real throughput gains rather than speculation.
Parallel with Solana’s Alpenglow
The Glamsterdam upgrade arrives as Ethereum’s closest smart contract rival, Solana, is also in the midst of its own major protocol overhaul. Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade, which entered live validator testing on May 11, targets 150-millisecond finality times and replaces the network’s aging TowerBFT consensus mechanism.
The two chains are betting on different visions. Ethereum leans into security, decentralization, and the enormous composability of its existing DeFi and NFT system. Solana bets on raw speed and sub-second latency for payments and high-frequency trading.
Glamsterdam is Ethereum’s direct response to years of “too slow, too expensive” criticism. Whether 200M gas and parallel execution is enough to win back developers and users who migrated to faster chains – that’s the question the June deployment will start to answer.
When Will Glamsterdam Ship?
The official timeline targets June 2026, though exact dates remain subject to change based on the outcome of AllCoreDevs calls and testnet deployments. Client teams are reportedly on track, and no major implementation blockers have been publicly flagged as of mid-May.
After Glamsterdam, the next planned upgrade – Hegotá – is already in early research stages, focusing on statelessness and further state management improvements.
FAQ
what’s the Ethereum Glamsterdam upgrade? Glamsterdam is a hard fork combining the Glasgow and Amsterdam upgrade tracks. It introduces Block-Level Access Lists for parallel transaction execution and Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation, targeting a tripling of Layer-1 throughput and a gas limit increase from ~60M to ~200M per block.
when’s Glamsterdam deploying? The upgrade is targeting June 2026, subject to successful testnet deployment and AllCoreDevs sign-off.
How will Glamsterdam affect Ethereum gas fees? By tripling execution capacity and raising the gas limit, Glamsterdam could push average Layer-1 fees to single-digit cents during normal network conditions – a dramatic reduction from current levels.
Sources: The Defiant, BingX, Cointribune, MarketScreener, Ethereum Magicians Forum. Data as of May 2026.
