Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade has passed another round of testing, with the latest rehearsal successfully confirming blocks under its new block-building rules. Developers are now preparing for a proposed Oct. 6 deployment on the Sepolia public testnet.
The test environment also raised its block gas limit toward 200 million as developers work through the next phase of Glamsterdam testing.
Nethermind, an Ethereum client used by node operators, ran a performance benchmark Wednesday focused on one of the upgrade’s key changes.
The client completed all 2,302 tests and processed 570.7 billion gas in 3 minutes and 15 seconds, producing an average throughput of roughly 2.9 billion gas per second.
The benchmark evaluated Nethermind’s execution client rather than the performance of Ethereum’s entire network. It focused on block-level access lists, which identify the accounts and storage data a block is expected to access before execution starts.
That advance information can allow Ethereum clients to retrieve data and execute unrelated transactions concurrently. Under the current design, much of this processing occurs sequentially, restricting the amount of activity that can safely fit within a block.
200 Million Gas Limit Expands Test Capacity
Around an hour after the testnet went live, Glamsterdam increased its block gas limit from 60 million to 200 million.
Because gas measures the computational work required to process transactions, raising the limit creates additional space for payments, token swaps and other transactions within each block.
A 200 million gas ceiling could allow Ethereum to absorb heavier activity before users begin competing more aggressively for block space. During major trading periods or popular token launches, that additional capacity could help limit sharp increases in transaction fees.
The larger blocks come with a trade-off. More capacity means greater computational requirements for nodes that must process and verify each block, potentially making it harder for smaller operators to keep up. Glamsterdam aims to increase throughput without making network participation prohibitively expensive.
Glamsterdam Revises Block Propagation
Ethereum uses specialized builders to assemble transactions, while validators verify the resulting blocks and help maintain network security.
Glamsterdam would bring the builder-to-validator handoff and related payments into Ethereum’s protocol rules, potentially reducing reliance on external relay infrastructure.
Another change extends the time available to distribute block data across the network from approximately two seconds to nine seconds. Validators would therefore have more time to receive and verify the larger blocks supported by the upgrade.
The 200 million gas limit remains a test configuration and should not be interpreted as a confirmed mainnet target. Devnet-11 was also conducted under controlled conditions without intentional attacks.
Developers are currently targeting Oct. 6 for Glamsterdam’s rollout on Sepolia. The public testnet will give application developers an opportunity to test their software under the new rules before any potential Ethereum mainnet deployment.
The Oct. 6 schedule remains subject to formal confirmation.
