Ethereum developers have moved the Glamsterdam upgrade into its final development stage. Teams are now running developer networks containing the full suite of planned Ethereum Improvement Proposals. This phase marks the last step before code hardening and deployment to public testnets.
Parithosh Jayanthi, a core developer at the Ethereum Foundation, confirmed the milestone. "This is the last phase before we work on hardening and then shipping the testnets. There's no fixed timeline, but we've made massive progress." The upgrade is expected to go live in the second half of the year.
Glamsterdam is described as the largest fork since the network's transition to proof-of-stake in 2022. Jayanthi noted it will "change a lot of assumptions about Ethereum and set us up for much more scaling in the future."
Two headline features lead the upgrade. Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation will move the block-building process onchain to reduce centralization concerns and manipulation risks tied to maximal extractable value. Block-level Access Lists will allow blocks to pre-declare data access, enabling faster and more predictable execution.
A sweeping set of gas repricings is also included. High-level compute will become cheaper, while state access gets more expensive, making the fee structure more accurately reflect resource consumption. Developers are currently focused on finalizing specifications and conducting community outreach on these economic changes.