Today, the Ethereum Foundation raised the stakes ahead of the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade by announcing the creation of Platåberget — a public testnet where anyone can preview the upcoming upgrade before its official launch on the mainnet.
The Foundation emphasized the urgent need for wallets, blockchain indexers, gas price estimation tools, and any other tools using a fixed maximum gas limit to take action, as they will stop functioning correctly after the upgrade.
The Foundation pointed developers to EIP-8037, which deals with state gas, as well as to EIP-2780 and EIP-8038, concerning cost decomposition.
According to the Ethereum Foundation, the Platåberget testnet will run for at least several months.
How is the Platåberget Testnet Different?
The Platåberget testnet, created specifically for the Glamsterdam upgrade, also differs from historical testnets like Holesky and Sepolia.
Additionally, it expands access to the wider public, unlike earlier private developer networks.
Another difference between Platåberget and earlier test versions is that it was launched from the current mainnet, and the Glamsterdam changes will take effect with a fork on August 20th. This allows operators to actually simulate what the transition will look like on an active chain, rather than everyone moving to a chain already operating under the new rules.
After this, Glamsterdam will go through several more stages before finally reaching the Ethereum mainnet.
One of these is collecting and processing community feedback on client software, which is expected to take another month.
Following that, the upgrade will proceed to the historical testnets Sepolia and Holesky before finally reaching the Ethereum mainnet.
What Will the Glamsterdam Upgrade Change in the Ethereum Network?
The Glamsterdam upgrade is expected to introduce changes to both layers of Ethereum. The most significant change, related to the separation of block proposal and building processes (EIP-7732), moves the block building process into the protocol itself.
According to Everstake, a staking service provider in the network, in the current configuration about 88% of Ethereum blocks are assembled off-chain via MEV-Boost relays. However, a drawback is that validators lack protocol-level mechanisms to respond if the relays, which assemble blocks, fail to fulfill their commitments.
The replacement system ensures that a block arrives on time, relying on signed commitments from supply chain participants and a new payload timeliness committee.
The second major change coming with Glamsterdam is block-level access lists (EIP-7928), which record every account and storage slot touched by a block, along with the resulting state.
Collectively, EIP-7732 and EIP-7928 lay the groundwork for the plan to increase gas usage limits from 60 million to 200 million. As a result of the upgrade, the maximum deployed contract size will increase from 24 KiB to 64 KiB, and the initcode limit will increase from 48 KiB to 128 KiB.
The Ethereum ecosystem continues to monitor the Hegotá upgrade, scheduled for 2027.
