Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade activates on Sepolia

Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade activated on the Sepolia testnet on October 6, giving developers a live test of changes planned for the network. ETH Daily reported the activation at 13:53 UTC, epoch 353,024. The upgrade finalized at 14:24 UTC, according to the report.

Sepolia is a public test network where developers can try Ethereum changes before they reach the main network. Glamsterdam’s test matters because it puts changes to block building, data access and gas costs into a live environment. Ethereum Foundation’s testnet announcement had scheduled the Sepolia activation for October 6 at 13:53:36 UTC.

What changes did Glamsterdam bring to Sepolia?

The upgrade introduces enshrined proposer-builder separation, or ePBS, which moves the division between building a block and proposing it into Ethereum’s protocol. Specialized builders assemble transactions into blocks; validators propose blocks to the network. The change makes that separation part of the protocol itself.

Glamsterdam also includes Block-Level Access Lists, which record the data a block’s transactions will touch. ETH Daily says these lists can let the network process transactions in parallel when they do not depend on the same data. The upgrade also changes gas pricing, the fees tied to the computing and data work Ethereum performs.

How much does the test raise the gas limit?

ETH Daily reported that the Sepolia upgrade raises the gas limit from 60 million to 200 million. The gas limit caps the amount of computation in a block. A higher limit gives developers a chance to test how Ethereum handles larger blocks alongside the upgrade’s changes to block building and data access.

The gas limit change is part of the test, not a promise that mainnet will immediately handle the same amount. Developers can use Sepolia to check how clients and applications behave under the new rules before a mainnet activation.

When could Glamsterdam reach Ethereum mainnet?

ETH Daily described the next public test on Hoodi as tentatively planned for October 26, with a mainnet activation as soon as December 2 also tentative. Those dates were still pending confirmation in the report. The Ethereum Foundation’s announcement said Hoodi and mainnet dates would be set separately.

So the Sepolia activation marks a testing milestone, not a mainnet launch. Developers will need to assess the test and continue public testnet work before Ethereum’s main network gets Glamsterdam.

References

• reported the activation — ethdaily.io
• testnet announcement — blog.ethereum.org