Ethereum has set the date: Glamsterdam, its next major update, will activate on the Sepolia testnet on October 6 at 1:53 p.m. UTC. Operators have one week to update their customers, otherwise they will be excluded from the network. This is the last rehearsal before the mainnet, targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.
In brief
- Sepolia will activate Glamsterdam on October 6 at 1:53:36 p.m. UTC (epoch 353,024), a date now confirmed.
- Node operators must update their execution and consensus clients before activation.
- The mainnet and Hoodi do not yet have a date; the next update, Hegotá, is targeted for 2027.
Sepolia, final dress rehearsal before the mainnet
Until recently, the date still remained conditional: tests on private networks had revealed finality defects and a pricing bug. She is now on the official calendar of the Ethereum Foundation : activation planned for epoch 353 024, slot 11 296 768, i.e. October 6, 2026 at 1:53:36 p.m. UTC. A testnet is used to rehearse updates publicly before the mainnet.
All testnet operators must update the software of both layers before the deadline. On the execution side, the Foundation lists Besu 26.9.0, Geth 1.17.6 and Reth 2.7.0; on the consensus side, Lodestar 1.49.0, Prysm 7.2.0 and Teku 26.9.1.
Prysm validators must also review their configuration: the default gas limit increases to 60 million. ETH holders do not need to do anything: the deadline only concerns Sepolia.
ePBS, access lists, gas, what Glamsterdam changes for Ethereum
The main new feature is called ePBS. The separation between block promoters and builders already exists, but via external actors. The EIP-7732 writes it into the protocol: the proposer publishes the commitment of a manufacturer, who then reveals the block, and the network manages the payment. Objective: limit dependence on these intermediaries and give validators more time to verify execution.
Glamsterdam adds block-level access lists (EIP-7928): they list the accounts and storage locations used, which allows reading the state and committing transactions in parallel.
The update also reworks gas pricing (EIP-8037 and 8038) to better reflect the cost of creating and accessing data: a project that aims to increase the execution capacity of the network. Contracts based on fixed gas limits will therefore have to be tested and sometimes corrected.
Hoodi, mainnet, Hegotá, the rest of the calendar
Heading now for Hoodi, the network’s other testnet: the developers’ notes mention October 27, without a formal decision. The mainnet remains targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026, without date. In the meantime, the Foundation has opened its bounty program to Glamsterdam specifications. The formula remains established: one major update meeting per year, which Ethereum news follows step by step.
Beyond looms Hegotá, the next update. Vitalik Buterin estimated on Sunday that it could be the last normal fork of the networkbefore a shift towards recursive STARKs, formal verification and post-quantum cryptography.
A week of preparation, then a full-scale test. If Sepolia finalizes without incident, the fourth quarter window for the mainnet will become clearer; otherwise, the entire calendar will move, starting with the Hegotá update, expected in 2027.
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