Ethereum Removes 200 Million Gas Limit Increase From Hoodi Schedule as Glamsterdam Is Delayed
Key Facts
The Ethereum Foundation announced on October 22 that it was postponing Glamsterdam activation on the Hoodi testnet and removing the increase of the gas limit to 200 million units from the scheduled upgrade settings. Activation had been scheduled for October 26, 2026, at 17:42:48 UTC, in epoch 132,352, but the foundation did not set an alternative date. It said developers had requested more time to investigate interactions between proposal EIP-8037 and smart contracts on mainnet. The decision means the gas limit increase was not implemented on Hoodi, and its timing was removed along with the upgrade. The foundation said the updated settings contain no alternative epoch or time, and that a new schedule would be announced later.
The delay covers activation of Amsterdam on the execution layer and Gloas on the consensus layer, the two components combined in the Glamsterdam upgrade. The foundation said the action resets the future upgrade settings but does not roll back Hoodi’s chain history. The announced change is therefore limited to the testnet’s schedule and future settings, while an alternative activation date remains unspecified. The Hoodi announcement did not set a date for Glamsterdam activation on mainnet. The foundation said mainnet users and ether holders do not need to take any action because of this update.
The review focuses on changes to the costs of creating and accessing state, two areas addressed by proposals EIP-8037 and EIP-8038. The first proposes measuring the cost of state creation separately from execution costs, while the second updates state-access costs. The Ethereum Foundation says gas prices for state operations have not been adjusted since the Berlin upgrade in 2021, while recent increases in the gas limit have accelerated state growth. EIP-8037 targets average annual state growth of 120 GiB at a reference block limit of 150 million gas units. The proposal places repricing within an effort to align fees with the cost of creating and retaining state data.
The EIP-8037 page explains developers’ interest in the state-growth trajectory by comparing what followed an increase in the gas limit from 30 million to 60 million units. The average volume of new state created daily, according to the page, rose from about 105 MiB to about 326 MiB after that increase. Extrapolating from the growth rate observed after the limit was raised, the page estimates that a limit of 200 million units could be associated with annual growth of about 387 GiB. The page says the state database in a stateful Geth node was about 390 GiB in January 2026. It also warns that the 650 GiB threshold associated with the start of node performance degradation could be exceeded in less than a year if the extrapolated growth rate continues.
Concerns also involve how contract execution may change after repricing, according to an analysis published by ChainSecurity on October 13. The analysis links the behavioral change to proposals EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, and explains that the state gas reservoir moves in full with calls. This could change the resources available to failure-handling paths within a contract, allowing a path that previously reverted to complete execution even if the code does not change. The company said: "The reservoir moves in full with calls." This issue puts the compatibility of the new rules with existing contracts among the points developers are examining before resuming upgrade activation on Hoodi.
In historical mainnet transaction replay tests, the Ethereum Foundation said a small group of contracts relied on assumptions that will change, while the vast majority of contracts were unaffected. It added that most issues seen in repricing tests can be resolved by increasing the gas limit. It urged developers to review contracts that hardcode gas values or change execution paths based on the amount of gas remaining. It recommended testing contracts and estimating gas under the proposed rules, including for contracts that did not appear on the affected list. The foundation said: "Even if your contract is not listed, review any code that hardcodes gas values or branches based on the remaining gas."
Glamsterdam was activated on the Sepolia testnet on October 6, 2026, ahead of the date scheduled for Hoodi. The upgrade combines the Amsterdam execution upgrade with Gloas for consensus and includes an integrated separation between the block proposer and builder, as well as block-level access lists. The foundation said these lists allow client software to read network state from disk and verify transactions in parallel, as well as calculate state roots more efficiently. After canceling the old date, the foundation asked Hoodi node operators and validators to review instructions for the execution and consensus layers before October 26. It stressed that software or settings should be updated to versions whose notes explicitly confirm the removal of Glamsterdam activation scheduled for that date, and listed Besu 26.10.1 among the relevant execution-layer releases.
On proposal development, the EIP-8037 page sets November 1, 2026, as the deadline for its last-call stage. This comes as the foundation has not set a new date for Glamsterdam activation on Hoodi and said an alternative schedule would be announced later. Until then, the foundation’s guidance for operators remains tied to removing the old date from client settings, while developers continue to be urged to test contracts and review their assumptions about available gas. The postponement announcement requires no action from mainnet users or ether holders.