The Ethereum gas limit on the Hoodi testnet is scheduled to increase from 60 million to 200 million when the Glamsterdam upgrade activates on October 26, according to the Ethereum Foundation. The Foundation has not set a mainnet activation date or schedule.

Hoodi is the next scheduled public test network after Sepolia for Glamsterdam and is expected to be the final testnet stage before a possible mainnet deployment. Testnets serve as rehearsal environments where client teams and node operators can exercise protocol changes on a live network before anything is considered for Ethereum’s main network, where defects would carry real consequences. The Ethereum Foundation published its announcement at

The planned increase would raise Hoodi’s gas limit by about 3.3 times. A block’s gas limit sets the maximum amount of computation it can contain, while individual transactions consume gas according to the work they require. A higher ceiling could allow more transactions or more complex smart-contract calls in a block when demand exists, but it does not guarantee faster confirmations, higher transaction rates, or a fixed transactions-per-second figure.

Actual throughput will also depend on block demand, transaction size, and how quickly nodes propagate and process blocks. The 200 million figure therefore represents a computation limit rather than guaranteed network activity. Client teams must evaluate execution behavior and node requirements under load before developers consider any possible mainnet deployment plan.

Glamsterdam Moves from Sepolia to Hoodi

Sepolia activated Glamsterdam on October 6, and Hoodi will follow at the same fork epoch as the gas-limit change. Results from Hoodi will give developers another opportunity to assess client behavior under the upgrade’s revised rules.

Researcher Toni Wahrstätter described the planned change in a post on X:

Hoodi is the final testnet before mainnet. With Glamsterdam going live soon, Ethereum will 3.3x its gas limit, from 60M to 200M. From there, 300M feels like a realistic next step. — Toni Wahrstätter ⟠ (@nero_eth) October 18, 2026

Wahrstätter has discussed 300 million gas as a possible longer-term target, but it is not a confirmed Glamsterdam setting.

The higher limit could increase demands on node hardware, storage, and bandwidth. Glamsterdam includes several changes intended to help manage those demands and improve processing and validation. The upgrade includes enshrined proposer-builder separation, or ePBS, block-level access lists, and gas repricing designed to better reflect execution costs and long-term state growth.

Under ePBS, the protocol separates the validator that proposes a block from the builder that assembles its execution payload. The change formalizes that handoff within Ethereum and gives validators more time to check execution data.

Block-level access lists record the accounts and storage locations accessed during a block. This structure could allow clients to process state reads and validation work in parallel, potentially supporting greater layer-one capacity while keeping validation practical. Gas repricing will adjust costs to more closely reflect execution requirements and state growth over time.

Developers will monitor whether these changes allow nodes to handle larger blocks reliably. Node operators must install compatible execution and consensus clients before Hoodi’s activation and check their gas-target settings, the per-block values through which validators steer the limit a chain actually runs at. Sepolia client guidance showed that some validator clients defaulted to a 60 million gas target after the fork. Those operators needed to apply an explicit setting to propose blocks with a 200 million gas target. The Hoodi announcement also instructs validators to review their settings before activation.

Mainnet Timing Remains Undecided

The Ethereum Foundation has not announced a mainnet launch date for Glamsterdam. Client teams will review the Hoodi results before establishing the next schedule, so the testnet gas-limit change does not establish a date for deployment on Ethereum’s main network.

Ethereum’s next planned fork after Glamsterdam is Hegotá, which is expected in 2027. Wahrstätter said developers were considering 23 proposals, including FOCIL and Frame Transactions, although the final package remained undecided.

Vitalik Buterin has described Hegotá as a possible last fork using conventional cryptography. He has pointed to future work involving advanced cryptography, formal verification, consensus, and quantum resistance. PeerDAS has also been discussed as a way for nodes to verify availability without downloading every block.

The Hoodi gas-limit increase is therefore a test of Ethereum’s layer-one capacity and client performance, not a guarantee of higher network activity. Developers will use the results to assess how the revised Glamsterdam rules perform before considering further steps toward a mainnet activation. For observers, the near-term markers are Hoodi’s October 26 activation, the availability of compatible client releases beforehand, and the share of blocks proposed at the 200 million target once the fork is live.