Ethereum’s latest rehearsal for its upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade has cleared an important hurdle, with the network continuing to confirm blocks under new block-building rules introduced earlier this week. The result marks a key step ahead of a proposed Oct. 6 deployment on the Sepolia public test network, though the date still needs formal confirmation.
On Wednesday, Nethermind — software used by computers running Ethereum — carried out a separate performance test focused on one of Glamsterdam’s biggest changes. Its client completed all 2,302 tests while processing 570.7 billion gas in three minutes and 15 seconds, or roughly 2.9 billion gas per second on average.
The benchmark measured Nethermind’s execution software rather than the speed of the full network. It tested block-level access lists, which tell Ethereum computers in advance which accounts and stored data a block will use before processing begins.
That early notice allows computers to fetch data and verify unrelated transactions in parallel. Today, much of that work on Ethereum is handled sequentially, which limits how much activity can be safely packed into each block.
About an hour after going live on the test network, Glamsterdam raised the block gas limit from 60 million to 200 million. Because gas measures the computing work required by transactions, the higher ceiling creates room for more payments, token swaps and other activity in every block.
Why it matters for Ethereum
A 200 million limit could allow Ethereum to absorb more activity before users start bidding against one another for block space, a dynamic that often pushes fees sharply higher. That could make fee spikes less severe when trading surges or a popular token launch clogs the network.
At the same time, larger blocks are harder to verify and could leave smaller operators struggling to keep up. Glamsterdam is meant to add capacity without making the chain prohibitively expensive to run.
In Ethereum’s structure, specialized builders package transactions, while validators check the resulting blocks and secure the chain. Glamsterdam would move that handoff and the related payments into Ethereum’s own rules, reducing reliance on outside relay services.
The upgrade also extends the time available to spread block data across the network from about two seconds to nine seconds. That gives validators more time to receive and check the larger blocks Glamsterdam is designed to support.
For now, the 200 million gas limit remains a test setting rather than a commitment for Ethereum’s main network. Devnet-11 was also designed as a controlled rehearsal without deliberate attacks.
Developers are targeting Oct. 6 for Glamsterdam’s deployment on Sepolia, where application teams will be able to test their software before the upgrade reaches Ethereum users.
