The Ethereum network is set to activate its Glamsterdam upgrade on the Sepolia testnet today, October 6, at 13:53:36 UTC, taking the blockchain's next major scaling update one step closer to the mainnet.
According to the Ethereum Foundation, the activation will occur at epoch 353,024 and slot 11,296,768. Glamsterdam combines two upgrades — Amsterdam on Ethereum's execution layer and Gloas on the consensus layer — and represents the first live-network test of changes aimed at preparing Ethereum for higher layer-1 capacity.
What the upgrade changes
The headline feature is enshrined proposer-builder separation, or ePBS, introduced through EIP-7732. Today, block builders construct the execution payload and communicate with validators through external middleware. Under ePBS, the relationship between block proposers and block builders moves into the Ethereum protocol itself: the proposer includes the builder's commitment for the execution payload, and the protocol handles the payment from the builder to the proposer. The Foundation says this removes the need for trusted third-party middleware for builder payments and cleanly separates consensus validation from execution validation.
A second major change arrives via EIP-7928, which introduces block-level access lists. These lists record the accounts and storage keys touched within a block along with the state transitions caused by transactions, allowing Ethereum clients to read state from disk more efficiently and optimise the computation of the state root.
What users need to do: nothing
The Foundation has stressed that the October 6 activation applies to Sepolia only, and that launch dates for the Hoodi testnet and the mainnet have not yet been decided. Developers discussing the roadmap have mentioned October 27 as a tentative date for a Hoodi launch, contingent on the Sepolia phase going smoothly. Operators of Sepolia nodes will need to update both their execution and consensus clients before activation, but regular users of the Ethereum mainnet are not required to take any action.
After Glamsterdam, the roadmap points to the Hegota fork in 2027, with developers already discussing longer-term work on native account abstraction, improved cryptography and quantum resistance.
Sources:
- Gadgets360: Ethereum Network to Undergo Major Speed Upgrade Test on October 6
According to the Ethereum Foundation, the activation will occur at epoch 353,024 and slot 11,296,768. Glamsterdam combines two upgrades — Amsterdam on Ethereum's execution layer and Gloas on the consensus layer — and represents the first live-network test of changes aimed at preparing Ethereum for higher layer-1 capacity.
What the upgrade changes
The headline feature is enshrined proposer-builder separation, or ePBS, introduced through EIP-7732. Today, block builders construct the execution payload and communicate with validators through external middleware. Under ePBS, the relationship between block proposers and block builders moves into the Ethereum protocol itself: the proposer includes the builder's commitment for the execution payload, and the protocol handles the payment from the builder to the proposer. The Foundation says this removes the need for trusted third-party middleware for builder payments and cleanly separates consensus validation from execution validation.
A second major change arrives via EIP-7928, which introduces block-level access lists. These lists record the accounts and storage keys touched within a block along with the state transitions caused by transactions, allowing Ethereum clients to read state from disk more efficiently and optimise the computation of the state root.
What users need to do: nothing
The Foundation has stressed that the October 6 activation applies to Sepolia only, and that launch dates for the Hoodi testnet and the mainnet have not yet been decided. Developers discussing the roadmap have mentioned October 27 as a tentative date for a Hoodi launch, contingent on the Sepolia phase going smoothly. Operators of Sepolia nodes will need to update both their execution and consensus clients before activation, but regular users of the Ethereum mainnet are not required to take any action.
After Glamsterdam, the roadmap points to the Hegota fork in 2027, with developers already discussing longer-term work on native account abstraction, improved cryptography and quantum resistance.
Sources:
- Gadgets360: Ethereum Network to Undergo Major Speed Upgrade Test on October 6
