Ethereum Glamsterdam mainnet upgrade

Glamsterdam is the next scheduled Ethereum upgrade, with its mainnet launch targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026. The date has not been confirmed and may change. The upgrade concerns ETH and the Ethereum network as a whole.

What is happening

Glamsterdam is the upgrade planned after Fusaka, which went live on December 3, 2025. According to the Ethereum.org Glamsterdam roadmap, it was due to reach the Sepolia test network on October 6, 2026, with the main-network release targeted for Q4 2026. No exact mainnet day has been announced, and the schedule is tentative.

The stated aim of Glamsterdam is to make it safe to raise Ethereum's gas limit from the current 60M towards roughly 200M. That figure is a target rather than a guaranteed result, and upgrade dates can shift as development and testing progress.

The upgrade follows a series of capacity-focused changes. Dencun in March 2024 introduced separate data space (blobs) for rollups, Pectra in May 2025 raised the blob target from 3 to 6 per block, and Fusaka added PeerDAS and made a 60M gas limit the default. Around 95% of Ethereum transactions now run on rollups, which leaves the main network with spare capacity.

Why it matters

A higher gas limit means more computation and transactions can fit into each block. For users, that supports the trend of low everyday fees: at a gas price of about 0.15 gwei in May 2026, standard transfers already cost only a few cents or less. For rollups and applications, more headroom on the base layer can help the network absorb growing demand without congestion.

Vitalik Buterin has indicated that gas limit growth is likely to become more targeted and less uniform, with some inefficient operations potentially becoming more expensive while everyday transfers get more room. Holders and traders may want to follow the testnet results and developer announcements, since the final mainnet date depends on them. Lower network fees reduce the cost of using Ethereum, but they do not change the price risk of holding ETH.

Key details

• Date: Q4 2026 (tentative; exact day not confirmed)
• Project: Ethereum
• Coins: ETH
• Category: Mainnet Launch
• Status: Tentative
• Source: PC Tech Magazine