Ethereum's next major network upgrade, Glamsterdam, has officially gone live on the Sepolia testnet, marking a critical milestone before an eventual mainnet deployment. The activation occurred on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, at 13:53 UTC and was confirmed by Ethereum contributor Pooja Ranjan and the Ethereum Foundation. The first fork block was successfully proposed by Consensys' Besu team, ensuring smooth chain finalization on the test network.
The Glamsterdam upgrade introduces two central protocol changes: enshrined proposer-builder separation, known as ePBS or EIP-7732, and block-level access lists defined in EIP-7928. ePBS separates block proposers from block builders at the consensus level, giving validators more time to process execution payloads. Access lists record accounts and storage locations accessed during block execution, enabling parallel state reading, simultaneous transaction validation, and more efficient state root calculation. In addition, the Ethereum Foundation set a floor of 200 million gas for Glamsterdam, up from roughly 60 million currently, supporting greater network throughput.
Following Sepolia, developers will set an activation date for the Hoodi testnet, after which the final Ethereum mainnet launch date will be confirmed. Once live, work will begin on Hegotá, the next major upgrade, which is expected to focus on privacy capabilities and had 66 proposals under review as of August. This testnet launch is being watched closely by traders and developers as Ethereum prepares for one of its most significant protocol upgrades of 2026.
