Ethereum Delays Glamsterdam Upgrade Testing on Hoodi
The Ethereum Foundation has postponed Glamsterdam upgrade activation on the Hoodi testnet, along with the planned increase of the gas limit to 200 million. The reason is compatibility risks for existing smart contracts resulting from changes to gas accounting rules.
Glamsterdam testnet Hoodi was postponed after developers warned of possible risks to existing smart contracts arising from changes to gas accounting. On October 22, 2026, the Ethereum Foundation announced that the activation originally scheduled for October 26 at 17:42:48 UTC would not take place. The increase of the gas limit to 200 million was also postponed along with the fork.
This is not a confirmed exploit of contracts or an incident on the current Ethereum mainnet. It is a compatibility and security risk that could emerge after a future change to the protocol rules.
Why the Glamsterdam testnet Hoodi was postponed
A technical analysis by ChainSecurity describes the possible consequences of combining proposals EIP-8037 and EIP-8038. These changes could affect the amount of gas available to a contract after an external call fails due to insufficient gas.
For some existing contracts, such a change could produce a different outcome even without modifying their code. For example, a contract could continue executing its error-handling logic after an unsuccessful external call or irreversibly record the failure. Under the rules in effect so far, this entire part of the execution could instead have been reverted.
The delay is intended to give client and application developers time to review contracts whose logic involves unsuccessful external calls. Public testing of the higher, 200-million gas limit on the Hoodi network is also being postponed.
No confirmed replacement date
The Ethereum Foundation has not yet confirmed a new activation date on Hoodi. It is likewise not known whether, or to what extent, the delay will affect the schedule for deploying Glamsterdam on the Ethereum mainnet. The mainnet upgrade date had not been confirmed even before this delay.
The future of EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 also remains an open question. The proposals could be modified, removed from Glamsterdam’s scope, or supplemented with measures to mitigate the risks described. No confirmed details about the chosen approach are available yet.
Some secondary reports referred to a specific number of real cases that ChainSecurity was said to have identified. However, this number was not independently substantiated in the verified primary analysis and therefore cannot be considered confirmed.
What to watch next
- an official announcement of a new fork date on Hoodi and updated client releases,
- changes to proposals EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 or possible mitigations,
- audit results and responsible disclosure to affected projects,
- information about the delay’s impact on the mainnet deployment schedule.
A new activation date for Glamsterdam on Hoodi has not yet been announced. The delay concerns the planned test fork and gas limit increase, not the currently operating Ethereum network.
Sources
- Ethereum Foundation Blog – Primarily confirms that on October 22, the Hoodi fork scheduled for October 26 was postponed, including the increase of the gas limit to 200M.
- ChainSecurity – Primary technical analysis of the mechanisms by which EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 could change the gas available after a failed call and undermine some contracts’ assumptions.
- CoinDesk – Independently reports the delay, the original activation time, and the absence of a replacement date or confirmed mainnet date.
Verified and updated: October 23, 2026 15:20
