Ethereum Delays Glamsterdam Test on Hoodi After EIP-8037 Review
The Ethereum Foundation wants to better understand the effects of EIP-8037 on smart contracts and gas repricing first. That is why the planned gas limit increase on testnet Hoodi has also been delayed.
Key Takeaways
- Ethereum developers have delayed the planned Glamsterdam activation on testnet Hoodi.
- EIP-8037 needs more review first because of its interactions with smart contracts on the mainnet.
- The delay also cancels the planned Amsterdam and Gloas activations and the planned gas limit increase to 200 million per block.
Ethereum developers have delayed the planned Glamsterdam activation on testnet Hoodi. The upgrade was set for Monday, October 26, 2026 at 17:42 UTC, but it will not happen for now because EIP-8037 needs further review first.
Why the Test Was Paused
The Ethereum Foundation announced the decision on October 22 through its own blog, after discussions in ACDE #248. According to the developers, the interactions between EIP-8037 and smart contracts on the mainnet need to be better understood first. That proposal is part of Glamsterdam and deals with gas repricing, including changes to the costs of creating new state.
The same upgrade also includes EIP-8038, which raises the costs of certain state calls, such as SSTORE, SLOAD, and cold account access. Those changes are meant to make network behavior play out differently, but that is exactly why the development group wants to look at the effects on a testnet first.
What Drops Off the Schedule
Because of the delay, the planned Amsterdam activation on the execution layer and Gloas activation on the consensus layer are also canceled on Hoodi. In addition, the planned increase in the gas limit to 200 million per block is off the table for now. That was an important capacity test for Ethereum.
The Foundation stressed that the measure only affects Hoodi. No new activation date for Glamsterdam on the mainnet has been set, and users or ETH holders do not need to do anything. The configuration for the future upgrade is being rolled back, while Hoodi’s chain history remains intact.
Why This Matters
For European crypto followers, this is especially relevant because Ethereum is showing that even testnet changes only go live once the technical risks have been worked through enough. That matters for a network where many DeFi applications and smart contracts run. The timing also stands out because two days earlier, an engineer at Lido publicly warned about a possible risk of staking deposit hijacking in Glamsterdam, although the Foundation is not linking the delay to that.
Client versions like Lodestar v1.50.1, Besu 26.10.1, Ethrex v30.0.1-rc.2, and Nethermind 2.2.1 had already been released for the old schedule and are now outdated. It is not yet known when Hoodi will move ahead with Glamsterdam again.
