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Ethereum Foundation warns some tools may break with Glamsterdam upgrade
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- DeepHorus
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has issued a stark warning that some wallets, indexers, and gas estimators may break when the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade activates on Ethereum testnets and mainnet. In a statement on Monday, the EF’s Protocol DevOps team explained that any tool relying on a hardcoded maximum gas limit “will break” and must be updated. Developers are being urged to test their systems on Plataberget, a public testnet designed to operate for several months ahead of the upgrade’s full rollout.
Plataberget launched on Aug. 13, according to the upgrade tracker Forkcast. The Glamsterdam fork is scheduled to activate on Plataberget on Thursday, with subsequent deployments on the Sepolia and Hoodi testnets. The upgrade introduces significant changes to Ethereum’s gas model, which could disrupt software that assumes a fixed gas cost for transactions.
At the heart of the changes is EIP-8037, which adds a separate state-gas dimension for operations that create new state. Under the new rules, a plain ETH transfer to an existing account would still cost 21,000 gas, but sending ETH to a new account would incur an additional state-gas charge. This shift breaks the long-standing assumption that 21,000 gas covers every ETH transfer.
The EF specifically advised developers to revisit software that uses only one gas dimension when estimating transaction costs. Tools that rely on hardcoded gas limits or overlook the new state-gas component are at the highest risk of malfunction. The foundation stressed that testing on Plataberget is essential to identify and fix issues before the upgrade reaches broader networks.
Beyond the gas model, Glamsterdam includes enshrined proposer-builder separation, block-level access lists, and increased limits for contract and initialization-code sizes. These features aim to improve network efficiency and decentralization, but they also require updates to client software and tooling.
Developers and infrastructure providers have been encouraged to participate in the testnet phase to ensure a smooth transition. The EF’s warning serves as a critical reminder that protocol upgrades demand proactive preparation. With the fork already scheduled for Thursday, the window for testing is narrow, and the ecosystem must act quickly to avoid disruptions.
