Ethereum's Glamsterdam Upgrade Enters Final Development Phase

Ethereum developers have entered the final development phase for Glamsterdam, the network's next major upgrade. According to recent reports from CoinDesk, teams are currently running devnets containing the full suite of planned Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) to trial new code before moving to public testnets.

This upgrade represents one of the network's most significant changes since the transition to proof-of-stake in 2022. While there is no fixed timeline, Glamsterdam is expected to go live during the second half of the year. The work currently happening on devnets serves as the final phase before the codebase undergoes hardening for public deployment.

The technical scope of this fork focuses on structural changes to how the network operates. Two primary proposals drive this shift: EIP-7732 and EIP-7928.

EIP-7732 introduces enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS). Currently, the separation between entities that build transaction blocks and those that propose them relies largely offchain, which creates centralization concerns and trust assumptions. Moving this mechanism onchain aims to reduce opportunities for manipulation related to maximal extractable value (MEV).

EIP-7928 introduces Block-level Access Lists. These changes are intended to alter existing assumptions about Ethereum and prepare the network for increased scaling in the future.

The significance of Glamsterdam lies in its ability to move critical coordination processes from offchain environments directly into the core protocol. If successful, the upgrade reduces the reliance on external intermediaries and addresses long-standing concerns regarding network manipulation. The transition from devnets to public testnets will reveal whether these protocol changes can be hardened without compromising network stability.

Watch for the transition from developer networks to public testnets to gauge the stability of these new EIPs.