Ethereum developers have moved the Glamsterdam upgrade into its final development phase, running multi-client test networks loaded with every change slated for what could become the network’s biggest overhaul since 2022.
Final Stretch Before MainnetCore developers have begun full-scale testing of a fork that bundles each Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) earmarked for Glamsterdam. The work marks the last stretch before the codebase is hardened and shipped to public testnets, with mainnet activation now expected in the second half of 2026. Ethereum Foundation core developer Parithosh Jayanthi postured the release as a turning point for the network, adding:
“Probably the largest fork we’ve had since the Merge. It could change a lot of assumptions about Ethereum and set us up for much more scaling.”
What ePBS and Access Lists ChangeThe second proposal, EIP-7928, adds Block-Level Access Lists, which as the name suggests, allows each block to declare in advance which accounts and contract data it will touch, so client software can preload the information and process transactions in parallel. The payoff, developers say, is block execution that is faster, cheaper to optimize, and more predictable.
Developers have already named the next milestone after Glamsterdam, i.e. Hegota, a sign of how quickly the roadmap is moving. However, it does bear mentioning that Glamsterdam was first penciled in for H1 2026 before developers pushed activation, citing the scale of the changes. No firm date has been locked in, and the testnet phase will set the final schedule.
