Sepolia testnet activated Glamsterdam hard fork: Ethereum raises gas limit to 200 million and introduces parallel access lists BALs
As reported by the leading developers of the Ethereum Foundation core in the official technical bulletin on the ethereum.org portal, on October 6, 2026 at 13:53 UTC (epoch 353,024, slot 11,296,768) the long-awaited Glamsterdam hard fork was successfully launched on the Sepolia test network. This is a key test milestone as part of the base layer (L1) scaling roadmap ahead of preparation for deployment on the Ethereum mainnet sometime in late 2026/early 2027.
The main sensation of the update was the radical increase in the gas limit per block: in the Sepolia test network, this figure immediately soared to 200 million (compared to the previous 60 million). Engineers intend to subject the network to maximum throughput stress testing, checking the stability of nodes and state synchronization with multiple increases in transaction volume.
Why did Ethereum raise the gas limit to 200 million and how will the network withstand the load?
In the accompanying documentation on github.com/ethereum, the researchers explained how the updated architecture copes with increased loads:
- Threefold increase in block capacity:Increasing the computing gas limit to 200 million allows you to pack 3.3 times more smart contract operations and packet proofs (blobs/ZK-proofs) from second-level networks into one block.
- State Bloat Prevention: The testnet will help identify disk I/O bottlenecks on Geth, Nethermind, Besu and Reth client nodes while still allowing validators to run on consumer hardware.
- Reduced base fees: A full-scale expansion of block space on L1 is designed to eliminate local gas surges during increased activity in DeFi.
What are ePBS and access-lists BALs for smart-contract speed?
In addition to gas manipulation, the Glamsterdam hard fork includes fundamental changes to the consensus algorithm and execution:
- Built-in faucet/validator separation (ePBS, EIP-7732):The native-level protocol separates block creation from block validation, eliminating the role of third-party MEV-Boost relays as a vulnerable middleman and giving validators more time to verify consensus.
- Block-level access lists (BALs, EIP-7928): Each block now pre-declares the accounts and memory locations accessed by transactions. This allows clients to execute non-conflicting EVM virtual machine instructions in parallel.
The developers emphasized that native ether (ETH, listed around $2,550) and user assets on the mainnet are not affected by the changes, and node operators on the Sepolia testnet need to update the consensus and execution clients to the latest versions.
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