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Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet activated the Glamsterdam upgrade on October 6, 2026, at 13:53:36 UTC. The fork landed at epoch 353,024. It gives validators the option to raise the network’s gas limit to 200 million.
That is a big jump from the previous ceiling of roughly 60 million.
This is a testnet, the place where Ethereum rehearses before anything touches real money.
What actually changed on Sepolia
Glamsterdam combines two upgrade tracks into one package.
The first is Amsterdam, which covers the execution layer. That is the part of Ethereum that processes transactions and runs smart contracts.
The second is Gloas, which covers the consensus layer. That is the part where validators agree on which blocks are valid and in what order.
The headline feature is enshrined proposer-builder separation, or ePBS, defined in EIP-7732. In Ethereum terms, the builder assembles a block full of transactions. The proposer is the validator who actually puts that block forward to the network. “Enshrined” means the split now lives inside the protocol itself rather than in add-on software running alongside it.
The package also includes block-level access lists and a round of gas repricings. Access lists help nodes know ahead of time what parts of Ethereum’s state a block will touch. Gas repricings adjust what certain operations cost, so the fee for an action better matches the work it demands from the network.
The 200 million gas question
Gas is Ethereum’s unit for measuring computational work. The gas limit is the cap on how much work can fit into a single block.
Moving from roughly 60 million to 200 million is more than a threefold increase in that capacity.
The key word in the Sepolia setup is “opt in.” Validators can signal a preference for the 200 million target.
Mainnet activation for Glamsterdam has not yet been scheduled, and the final gas limit parameters for mainnet have not been decided. There are no immediate changes to mainnet gas limits.
How it got here
Developers first ran the upgrade through earlier test environments, including one called Platåberget and another known as Devnet 8, to validate the core functionality before the code reached a public testnet.
Teams including Prysm, one of the consensus client implementations, pushed last-minute patch releases to support the fork. Prysm shipped version 7.2.1 as part of that scramble.
What this means for Ethereum
Testnet forks rarely move prices, and this one changes nothing about how mainnet works right now.
A gas limit of 200 million, paired with ePBS and access lists, shows how developers want to expand Layer 1 capacity. The upgrade bundles structural changes to block production with raw capacity increases.
Bigger blocks mean more data and more computation for every node operator. If hardware demands climb too fast, smaller operators could struggle to keep up, which raises questions about decentralization.
The opt-in structure on Sepolia allows developers to observe how validators behave and how nodes perform under heavier blocks before committing to anything on mainnet.
The biggest open question is the final mainnet gas limit. Sepolia’s 200 million figure is a test target, not a promise.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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