Glamsterdam Devnet Live

Ethereum developers are bringing the Glamsterdam upgrade onto a live devnet, the first shared test network for code meant to raise throughput and tighten links with rollups. (blog.ethereum.org) Ethereum is a blockchain where every node replays transactions to agree on the same state, and that one-by-one design limits how many transactions the network can handle. Glamsterdam’s roadmap page says the upgrade targets “parallelization,” or safely processing more than one transaction path at a time. (ethereum.org) One piece of that work is Block-Level Access Lists, or BALs, which record the accounts and storage slots a block touches. The draft BAL proposal says those lists can enable parallel disk reads, parallel transaction validation, parallel state-root calculation, and “executionless” state updates. (eips.ethereum.org) Another piece is enshrined proposer-builder separation, or ePBS, which moves today’s builder market deeper into Ethereum’s core rules. The draft ePBS proposal says it splits a block into consensus and execution parts and gives the consensus proposer a protocol-level way to choose the execution proposer. (eips.ethereum.org) The Ethereum Foundation said on April 10 that ePBS has been “trickier than anticipated,” and that BAL devnets were still working through expected implementation problems. In that same update, developers said they were aiming for the first generalized Glamsterdam devnet the following week if the ePBS devnet could be stabilized. (blog.ethereum.org) That sequencing matters because Ethereum’s recent upgrades already pushed more activity onto layer-2 networks, which batch transactions off-chain and post data back to Ethereum. The Foundation’s February protocol update said Pectra reached mainnet on May 7, 2025, Fusaka followed on December 3, 2025, and mainnet gas limits rose from 30 million to 60 million in between. (ethereum.org, blog.ethereum.org) The current Glamsterdam roadmap page says the upgrade is planned for the first half of 2026 and is meant to “clear the path for the next generation of scaling.” It groups the work into faster processing, more capacity, and limits on database growth so node hardware demands do not climb as quickly. (ethereum.org) Ethereum has also been standardizing how addresses and names work across chains as more users move through rollups and bridges instead of staying on one chain. ERC-7930 defines an interoperable address format, and ERC-7828 defines a human-readable name format built on top of it. (eips.ethereum.org, eips.ethereum.org) Core developers have been discussing Glamsterdam in public calls for months, with January, February, and March agendas tracking BAL devnets, ePBS devnets, repricing work, and client readiness. Those call notes show the upgrade’s scope is still being refined even as implementation moves forward. (github.com, github.com, github.com) The Foundation’s latest checkpoint lays out the next steps after a stable generalized devnet: client releases, security reviews, public testnets, and only then a mainnet fork date. For now, the live devnet is a milestone in the testing process, not a production launch. (blog.ethereum.org)