The Ethereum Foundation has scheduled the activation of the Glamsterdam upgrade on Ethereum's Hoodi testnet for October 27, targeting epoch 132,352 and slot 4,235,264. The timeline was set out in an announcement published by the Foundation on October 16.

In the same transition, the network's gas limit will rise to 200 million, meaning the capacity increase takes effect in tandem with the upgrade's new protocol rules rather than in a separate change.

Background on the Upgrade and the Testnet

Glamsterdam is the codename for Ethereum's next network upgrade, continuing the chain's long-standing practice of assigning codenames to major hard forks, following earlier upgrades such as Dencun, Pectra, and Fusaka. The name also follows Ethereum's convention of combining a consensus-layer and an execution-layer codename into a single label for coordinated protocol changes. The scope of each hard fork is settled through Ethereum's open development process, in which client teams and researchers review and agree on proposed changes in public developer meetings before an activation timeline is set.

Hoodi is a public Ethereum testnet: a parallel network running the same protocol software as mainnet but without real economic value at stake. It is used by client developers, staking operators, and infrastructure providers to rehearse upgrades before they are deployed to the main network, allowing bugs to be identified in a low-risk environment. In recent upgrade cycles, hard forks have passed through more than one public testnet before a mainnet activation date was chosen, making each testnet milestone one stage in a longer rollout.

Ethereum's proof-of-stake consensus organizes chain time into 12-second slots, which are grouped into epochs of 32 slots. Fixing a fork at a specific epoch — in this case 132,352, corresponding to slot 4,235,264 — gives node operators an exact, deterministic activation point rather than an approximate wall-clock time.

The gas limit caps the total computational work permitted in each block. Raising it increases the amount of transaction activity each block can hold, and the change requires broad node operator adoption. Larger blocks also raise the computational, storage, and bandwidth load carried by every node verifying the chain, which is capacity changes are coordinated across the operator community. Bundling the increase with a scheduled hard fork gives the network a single, coordinated transition point.

Testnet activations are a standard step in Ethereum's upgrade process, in which client teams validate software releases on test networks before a mainnet activation date is scheduled. In past cycles, that mainnet timeline has been set in the same public developer meetings that determine each fork's scope, once testnet runs are complete — the process Glamsterdam now enters with the October 27 Hoodi activation.

Source

This report was first published by COINOTAG: Ethereum Foundation Sets Hoodi Activation of Ethereum (ETH) Glamsterdam Upgrade for October 27