Ethereum Developers Postpone Glamsterdam Upgrade on Hoodi

Ethereum developers announced on Oct. 22 that Glamsterdam’s Oct. 26 Hoodi testnet activation would be postponed while they investigate potential smart-contract compatibility issues. Application developers must revise testing plans, while Hoodi operators need software configurations that remove the canceled activation.

Developers Investigate Contract Compatibility Before Hoodi Activation

Core developers agreed to the postponement during their latest execution-layer coordination call. Hoodi had been scheduled to activate Glamsterdam at epoch 132,352, following its earlier deployment on Sepolia.

The investigation concerns Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 8037, which changes the cost of creating blockchain state, including new accounts, contract code and storage. The proposal increases those charges and meters them separately from execution costs to limit database growth as block capacity expands.

The Foundation’s earlier guidance warned that contracts relying on fixed gas allowances, hardcoded limits or assumptions about remaining gas may need changes. For application developers, the compatibility work concerns whether existing transactions and gas-estimation tools continue functioning under the proposed rules.

Hoodi Operators Must Remove the Old Activation Schedule

The postponement removes both the Amsterdam execution-layer activation and the Gloas consensus-layer activation from Hoodi’s scheduled configuration. It also cancels the scheduled increase to a 200 million gas limit, which caps the resource use permitted within each block.

The Foundation said this changes a future upgrade configuration and does not reverse Hoodi’s transaction history. Operators should check both execution and consensus software before Oct. 26, including custom configurations that still contain the canceled activation.

Operators should use releases whose notes explicitly confirm removal of the Oct. 26 activation schedule. Validators must also review instructions for their validator software and builder infrastructure, rather than assuming previously announced releases incorporate the revised configuration.

Glamsterdam’s Mainnet Activation Remains Unscheduled

Glamsterdam activated on the Sepolia testnet on Oct. 6. The Foundation has not announced a mainnet activation date, so the Hoodi decision postpones a testing milestone rather than a confirmed production-network launch.

The upgrade includes protocol-level separation of block proposers and builders, alongside access lists that help clients process blockchain data more efficiently. These changes are intended to support greater execution capacity while keeping validation practical for node operators.