Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade has successfully completed a critical test phase with its deployment on the Sepolia testnet, marking a significant step towards enhancing the network’s efficiency and scalability. The upgrade went live on Tuesday at 1:53 pm UTC, corresponding to epoch 353,024.
This deployment on Sepolia serves as a vital rehearsal before Glamsterdam’s eventual activation on the Ethereum mainnet. The upgrade introduces two key technical advancements: enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS) and block-level access lists (BALs). According to the Ethereum Foundation, these features are designed to improve transaction processing, boost network throughput, and advance Ethereum’s layer-1 scaling roadmap.
Key Technical Advancements
ePBS, outlined in EIP-7732, aims to create a distinct separation between block proposers and builders within Ethereum’s consensus protocol. This separation also differentiates consensus validation from execution validation, potentially allowing validators more time to process execution payloads. BALs, specified in EIP-7928, introduce enforced lists that record accounts and storage locations accessed during a block, alongside post-transaction state changes. These lists are intended to enable clients to read state from disk in parallel, validate transactions concurrently, and compute state roots more efficiently.
The Ethereum Foundation has established a proposed gas limit floor of 200 million for Glamsterdam, a substantial increase from the current network limit of approximately 60 million. This adjustment is anticipated to provide a significant post-upgrade boost to the network’s capacity.
Development Roadmap and Future Steps
The successful deployment on Sepolia is a crucial step in the testing process. Following this phase, developers will determine the activation date for Glamsterdam on the Hoodi testnet, before setting a final date for its mainnet launch. The Glamsterdam upgrade follows the Fusaka upgrade and is designed to improve scalability, harden the layer-1, and enhance the network’s user-friendliness.
While the testnet launch represents a positive development, the specific activation dates for the Hoodi testnet and the eventual mainnet launch of Glamsterdam have not yet been determined. After Glamsterdam’s mainnet activation, Ethereum developers are slated to begin implementing the Hegotá upgrade, which is expected to focus on introducing more privacy capabilities into the protocol.
This deployment on Sepolia is a key part of Ethereum’s strategy to iteratively improve its performance and scalability, with Glamsterdam representing a significant advancement in that ongoing journey.
Why This Matters
The materials describe a narrow update: The Glamsterdam upgrade, designed to enhance Ethereum’s efficiency and scalability, has been deployed on the Sepolia testnet. The activation date for Glamsterdam on the Hoodi testnet has not yet been determined.
Broader Context
Source materials place the factual news in this context: Sepolia marks one of the final major rehearsals before the final activation of Glamsterdam, aimed at bringing more efficiency and scalability to the Ethereum mainnet.
