Ethereum Completes Successful Rehearsal for ‘Glamsterdam’ Upgrade, Weighs Oct. 6 Sepolia Testnet Deployment

Ethereum has successfully completed a key test for its next major network overhaul, the "Glamsterdam" upgrade.

CoinDesk reported on Sept. 17 that the Glamsterdam test network continued producing blocks normally after recently adopting new block-production rules.

Nethermind, a developer of Ethereum client software, also completed performance testing for Block-level Access Lists, one of Glamsterdam’s core features.

The Nethermind client passed all 2,302 tests and processed 570.7 billion gas over 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Average throughput was about 2.9 billion gas per second.

About an hour after launch, the Glamsterdam testnet raised the block gas limit to 200 million from 60 million, more than tripling capacity. A higher gas limit allows more transfers, token swaps and smart-contract executions in a single block.

Larger blocks also require more computing resources and network bandwidth for validation. If smaller node operators cannot process large blocks in time, the network’s overall decentralization could weaken. Glamsterdam is designed to expand capacity by improving block-processing architecture without excessively raising node operating costs.

Ethereum developers are considering deploying Glamsterdam to the Sepolia testnet on Oct. 6. The detailed schedule will be finalized at a future official meeting.