- Ethereum will activate Glamsterdam, its next hard fork, which includes native $ETH transfer logs, ePBS, and per-block access lists.
- The upgrade incorporates builder and proposer separation at the protocol level, reducing reliance on third-party relay services.
- The maximum bytecode size for smart contracts will increase significantly, expanding the design space for complex DeFi protocols.
Ethereum is preparing its next hard fork under the name Glamsterdam, one of the most significant protocol upgrades since The Merge.
The upgrade is in an advanced stage of development and is being tested on devnets before moving to public testnets. According to Kirill Kuznetsov, Senior Solution Architect at 1inch, the changes aim to make the network more efficient, more indexable, and better prepared to scale without altering the direct user experience.
Glamsterdam Without Intermediaries: More Transparent Blocks and More Traceable $ETH
One of the most practical changes means that native $ETH transfers will begin emitting logs. Until now, tracking $ETH movements required tracing internal calls, while ERC-20 transfers could be followed directly through events. This difference has been a persistent source of problems for teams building transaction histories, analytics tools, and wallets. With Glamsterdam, indexers, explorers, and backend applications will be able to process native transfers with the same simplicity as tokens.
The upgrade also incorporates the enshrined proposer-builder separation, known as ePBS. Today, that separation is managed mostly through off-chain infrastructure, including relay services that operate as trusted intermediaries. Glamsterdam brings that process into the protocol itself, eliminating the third-party layer and making the block-building flow more predictable and resistant to manipulation. Kuznetsov notes that this could make MEV “more honest” and accelerate block propagation between nodes.
Glamsterdam also includes block-level access lists, which will allow clients to know in advance which accounts and storage slots will be modified. That prior knowledge enables efficient data preloading and lays the groundwork for more parallel execution, something that has historically limited Ethereum’s performance. The maximum bytecode size of smart contracts will also increase considerably, expanding the available space for routing protocols, account abstraction, and advanced on-chain logic.
Finally, Glamsterdam contemplates a revision of the gas model: computationally intensive operations will become cheaper, while operations that generate state growth will become more expensive. The message for developers is clear: assumptions about gas costs will need to be revised before the upgrade takes effect.
