Ethereum’s planned Glamsterdam upgrade is facing renewed uncertainty after developers postponed testnet activation and two competing proposals emerged to prevent repriced gas charges from breaking existing smart contracts.
The root of the concern lies in EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, which alter gas costs for contract creation and state access. EIP-8037 would raise the base charge for creating a smart contract from 32,000 to 183,600, excluding additional execution and storage costs, while EIP-8038 adjusts charges for operations including SLOAD, SSTORE and cold account access. Security researchers warned that many older contracts rely on fixed gas assumptions, and changes could cause transactions to fail or interfere with non-upgradeable applications holding user funds.
Auditing firm ChainSecurity first flagged the risks in an October 13 report, and the Ethereum Foundation later catalogued eight broken invariants in a GitHub repository with explanations and self-check prompts. Pseudonymous developer banteg cited analysis estimating around 200,000 potentially affected contracts, adding that methodological issues could mean the real number is higher.
The Hoodi testnet activation was postponed from its scheduled October 26 date, covering Amsterdam execution layer changes, Gloas consensus changes and a planned gas limit increase to 200 million. Developers have tentatively discussed a private devnet for November 16 to 20, though that timeline was prepared before the new proposals arrived.
On November 8, developers Leo Glisic and Giulio Rebuffo submitted separate fixes. Glisic's EIP-8488 would introduce V2 opcodes for newly deployed contracts while letting older contracts keep their original gas schedule. Rebuffo's draft would run two gas accounting systems in each transaction—one tracking consumption under previous rules and another calculating fees under the new schedule—but no execution client implementation or consensus tests have been completed.
Prominent voices have urged caution. Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov warned that proceeding could lead to “another emergency hard fork back, with a lot of drama.” Ethereum investor Ryan Berckmans reversed his earlier support for rapid activation, while security researcher pcaversaccio said Glamsterdam should not be shipped in its current form. Ethereum Foundation developer Marius van der Wijden confirmed the Foundation is working with ChainSecurity and Dedaub to examine affected applications.
