Crypto: Ethereum prepares a historic increase in its gas limit with Glamsterdam

Ethereum is preparing to increase its gas limit from 60 million to 200 million per block as part of the Glamsterdam upgrade. This increase represents a factor of 3.3, and not 33, but it only applies to the test networks for the moment, no date having yet been set for the mainnet.

The 200 million gas test arrives on Hoodi

Glamsterdam was activated on the Sepolia testnet on October 6. The Ethereum Foundation is now planning its deployment on Hoodi on October 26 at 5:42 p.m. UTC, the last public step announced before possible activation on the mainnet.

The timetable and levels chosen make it possible to specify the scope of the change:

• The tested limit goes from around 60 to 200 million gas per block;
• The increase corresponds to a factor of 3.3;
• Sepolia has already applied this new limit since October 6;
• Hoodi is due to adopt him on October 26;
• No activation date on the mainnet has been decided;
• A future increase to 300 million is mentioned, but it does not constitute an official commitment.

Ethereum researcher Toni Wahrstätter asserts :

Hoodi is the last testnet before the mainnet. With the upcoming arrival of Glamsterdam, Ethereum will multiply its gas limit by 3.3, from 60 to 200 million.

He then judges that a target of 300 million could become realistic. Gas measures the amount of computer work required to execute transactions and smart contracts. A higher limit allows more calculations in each block. It can therefore increase Ethereum’s capacity and reduce competition for available space when the network is under high demand.

However, this development does not guarantee an identical multiplication of the number of transactions. Glamsterdam also modifies the gas cost of several operations. The result will depend on the type of transaction, the contracts used and the amount of permanent data created on the network.

Glamsterdam revamps block validation

Raising the limit becomes possible thanks to two structural changes. The first, called enshrined proposition-builder separation, directly inscribes in the protocol the separation between the actors who build the blocks and the validators who propose them.

This architecture should give validators more time to verify blocks. It also aims to reduce dependence on external systems which today organize part of this separation.

The second change is based on block-level access lists. These lists indicate in advance the accounts and storage locations used by a block’s transactions. Customers of Vitalik Buterin’s network can thus retrieve the necessary data earlier and verify independent operations in parallel.

The network then avoids systematically processing all transactions one after the other. This parallelization increases the volume of calculation that a node can control without exceeding the time available between two blocks.

The first results on Sepolia remain encouraging, but incomplete. An analysis of several blocks showed consumption of between 52 and 92 million gas, or only 26% to 46% of the new capacity. The tests have therefore not yet sustainably reproduced the maximum load that Ethereum could experience on its mainnet.

Increased capacity imposes new costs

Larger blocks may increase demands on node operators. They require more computing, bandwidth and storage. Too rapid an increase would risk reserving validation for powerful infrastructures and weakening decentralization.

Glamsterdam therefore adds new pricing for operations that create or consult the state of Ethereum, that is to say the permanent data kept by each node. EIP-8037 increases and separates the cost of creating this state. EIP-8038 re-evaluates the price of its access.

The goal is to keep the database’s annual growth near 120 gigabytes, so that individuals can still operate a node with accessible hardware. The increase in capacity must not cause an uncontrolled increase in stored data.

These changes also force some developers to adapt their applications. Smart contracts that use hardcoded gas limits, old estimates, or fixed assumptions about remaining gas may fail after upgrade. The Ethereum Foundation therefore recommends carrying out tests before entering the mainnet.

For the ordinary user, no immediate action is required. Wallets and infrastructure providers will need to update their estimation tools.

Glamsterdam therefore does not automatically promise fees divided by three or three times more transactions. Rather, the upgrade creates the technical conditions for a sustainable increase in capacity, provided that the tests on Hoodi confirm the stability observed on Sepolia.