Ethereum’s next major hard fork, Glamsterdam, has moved deeper into developer testing, with ethpandaops maintaining public specifications for multi-client devnets. The upgrade combines execution-layer and consensus-layer changes intended to improve block construction, execution efficiency and long-term network scalability.
The current devnet work should be read as an integration phase, not a finalized mainnet rollout. A precise activation date has not been set, and the proposal set remains subject to testing, implementation feedback and future public testnet results.
ePBS and Block Access Lists Lead the Upgrade
Two proposals remain central to Glamsterdam’s technical direction. EIP-7732, known as enshrined proposer-builder separation, changes how Ethereum separates block proposal and execution payload construction inside the protocol.
Developer discussions describe ePBS as a way to move more of the block production pipeline into Ethereum itself, reducing reliance on external relay markets and giving validators more time to process execution data and blobs. The design aims to expand the effective block propagation and validation window, supporting future scaling work.
EIP-7928 introduces block-level access lists, a mechanism intended to make transaction dependencies easier to identify before execution. If the design performs well in practice, it could help clients process non-conflicting transactions more efficiently and support greater parallelization inside blocks.
Those changes form part of the technical basis for higher gas-limit ambitions. Realized capacity will depend on client performance, validator hardware requirements and live network behavior, even as developers discuss a path from Ethereum’s current 60 million gas range toward a much higher long-term target.
Devnet Results Must Still Prove Real-World Readiness
The ethpandaops devnet specifications show that Glamsterdam testing includes a broad and evolving set of EIPs, including ePBS, block-level access lists, state-access pricing changes, calldata cost changes and networking updates. That breadth makes the upgrade one of Ethereum’s more complex post-Merge hard fork efforts.
The current phase is focused on cross-client compatibility and stress testing. Core developers need execution clients, consensus clients, builders, validators and tooling providers to remain synchronized across the revised block production rules.
Public testnets remain the next major checkpoint before any mainnet schedule can become credible. Wallets, infrastructure providers, staking operators, rollups and DeFi teams will need time to test compatibility with the revised execution and gas economics.
The main risk is that theoretical throughput gains may not translate cleanly into production performance. Parallel execution benefits depend on real transaction patterns, block composition and whether client implementations can process access-list data efficiently under stress.
Glamsterdam has advanced through active multi-client devnet work, with ePBS and block-level access lists still at the center of the upgrade. The next meaningful milestone will be public testnet deployment, where the proposed changes can be evaluated under broader ecosystem conditions before any final mainnet activation window is set.