The Ethereum gas limit on the Hoodi testnet will rise from 60 million to 200 million when the Glamsterdam upgrade activates on October 26, according to the Ethereum Foundation. This represents a 3.3x increase in the computation each block can contain.
Hoodi is the next scheduled public testnet after Sepolia for Glamsterdam. The Ethereum Foundation has not yet set a mainnet activation date for the upgrade.
What a Higher Gas Limit Means
A larger gas limit creates room for more transactions or complex contract calls, depending on demand and network usage. However, a higher block gas limit does not guarantee faster confirmations or a fixed transactions-per-second figure. Actual throughput also depends on block demand, transaction size, and how quickly nodes propagate and process blocks.
Technical Changes in Glamsterdam
The Glamsterdam upgrade includes three core components:
- Enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS): The protocol will formally separate the validator proposing a block from the builder assembling its execution payload, giving validators more time to check execution data.
- Block-level access lists: These structures record which accounts and storage locations transactions access within a block, potentially allowing clients to process state reads and validation work in parallel.
- Gas repricing: Adjusted costs will better reflect execution and long-term state growth.
Testing and Node Requirements
Developers will use Hoodi to evaluate client behavior under the revised rules and assess whether these changes allow nodes to handle larger blocks reliably. The upgrade may add pressure to node hardware, storage, and bandwidth, which Glamsterdam's technical changes aim to manage.
Node operators must install compatible execution and consensus clients before Hoodi's activation. Validator operators should also review their gas-target settings, as some clients defaulted to the 60 million gas target after previous forks and required explicit configuration to propose blocks at the higher level.
Future Upgrades
Ethereum's next planned fork after Glamsterdam is Hegotá, expected in 2027. Developers have been considering multiple proposals for that upgrade, though the final package remains undecided.
