Glamsterdam enters testing
Ethereum’s next network upgrade, called “Glamsterdam,” has entered an advanced testing phase and is described as reorganising gas fees and increasing contract size through EIP‑7954. The report frames the work as a preparatory step toward a secure deployment later in 2026, even as ETH price action has remained muted around $2,200. (cointribune.com)
Ethereum’s next upgrade, Glamsterdam, is now deep enough in testing that developers are running dedicated devnets and biweekly repricing calls ahead of a planned 2026 release. (ethereum.org) Ethereum is the base network that processes transactions and smart contracts, and every operation pays a “gas” fee set by protocol rules. Glamsterdam is the next hard fork after Fusaka, and ethereum.org lists it as planned for the first half of 2026. (ethereum.org, ethereum.org) The upgrade’s main job is to change how Ethereum prices work done on the network and how blocks are built and checked. The Ethereum Foundation said on January 20, 2026 that its two headlining features were enshrined proposer-builder separation and block-level access lists, with the latter already on devnets at that point. (blog.ethereum.org) In plain language, gas repricing means charging more accurately for actions that consume storage and computing resources, instead of relying on older prices that can undercharge some operations. Ethereum’s roadmap says Glamsterdam aims to “prevent database bloat” by making fees better reflect the long-term hardware cost of storing new data. (ethereum.org) One proposal tied to that work is Ethereum Improvement Proposal 8037, which raises the gas cost of creating new state on the chain. That proposal was still on the April 4, 2026 agenda for the “Glamsterdam Repricings” call, alongside updates from bal-devnet-3. (github.com) Another proposal, Ethereum Improvement Proposal 7954, would let developers deploy bigger contracts by raising the code-size limit from 24 kibibytes to 32 kibibytes and the initcode limit from 48 kibibytes to 64 kibibytes. The draft says the current 24 kibibyte cap can restrict more complex applications. (eips.ethereum.org) That contract-size change is not final. The draft meta proposal for Glamsterdam lists Ethereum Improvement Proposal 7954 as “considered for inclusion,” while only Ethereum Improvement Proposal 7732 and Ethereum Improvement Proposal 7928 are marked “scheduled for inclusion.” (eips.ethereum.org) The testing has been moving in stages through named developer networks. Core developer agendas from January, February and March 2026 refer to bal-devnet-2, bal-devnet-3 and epbs-devnet-0, showing that teams are still validating pieces of the fork before freezing the full package. (github.com, github.com, github.com) The broader roadmap is bigger than one fork. The Ethereum Foundation said on February 18, 2026 that Glamsterdam is the next major upgrade and tied it to goals including parallel execution, higher gas limits, enshrined proposer-builder separation and continued blob scaling. (blog.ethereum.org) Markets have not treated the engineering milestones as a trading catalyst on their own. Ethereum closed at $2,192.20 on April 12, 2026 on CoinMarketCap data, and CoinDesk listed ETH at about $2,200 on April 12, 2026. (coinmarketcap.com, coindesk.com) What happens next is more testing, not a launch. Ethereum’s own roadmap still frames Glamsterdam as an upcoming first-half 2026 upgrade, and the current meta proposal shows several pieces, including the contract-size increase, are still being debated rather than locked in. (ethereum.org, eips.ethereum.org)
