Key Points:
- Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade has cleared another important testing milestone, with the Sepolia public testnet fork targeted for October 6, 2026.
- Nethermind completed 2,302 performance tests while processing 570.7 billion gas in three minutes and 15 seconds, averaging about 2.9 billion gas per second.
- The upgrade’s block-level access lists and enshrined proposer-builder separation are designed to support substantially higher Ethereum Layer 1 capacity while improving how blocks are processed and constructed.
Ethereum Advances Glamsterdam Testing as Scaling Becomes the Focus
Ethereum developers have cleared another important rehearsal for Glamsterdam, the network’s next major protocol upgrade, strengthening the case for a move toward substantially higher transaction capacity. The latest test continued confirming blocks under new block-building rules, while Nethermind separately demonstrated that its execution software could process the workload associated with one of the upgrade’s central scaling changes.
The progress comes as Ethereum remains under pressure in the broader crypto market, with ETH recently trading around $2,400. For investors, however, Glamsterdam is primarily a technology and infrastructure development: its significance lies in whether Ethereum can increase Layer 1 capacity while maintaining the security and decentralization properties that underpin institutional applications.
Nethermind Processes 570.7 Billion Gas in Benchmark
Nethermind, one of the execution clients used by Ethereum nodes, completed all 2,302 performance tests in the latest benchmark. The client processed 570.7 billion gas in three minutes and 15 seconds, equivalent to approximately 2.9 billion gas per second.
The figure should not be interpreted as the transaction-processing speed of the entire Ethereum network. The benchmark measured Nethermind’s execution software under a specific test workload. Its importance is that client performance is a critical constraint on how much computational work Ethereum can safely include in each block.
Faster execution therefore gives developers more room to increase the network’s block gas limit without placing the same degree of pressure on node operators. Ethereum’s development roadmap has identified higher gas limits as a key component of its longer-term scaling strategy.
Block-Level Access Lists Enable More Parallel Processing
The test focused on block-level access lists, one of Glamsterdam’s headline changes. These lists identify the accounts and stored data that a block is expected to use before computers begin processing it.
That advance information can allow nodes to retrieve state data more efficiently and process transactions that do not depend on one another in parallel. Ethereum currently performs much of this work sequentially, which limits how much activity can be safely placed inside a block.
The broader objective is significant. Ethereum’s roadmap says Glamsterdam’s access-list design could help clear the way for raising the Layer 1 block gas limit from roughly 60 million toward approximately 200 million, although the eventual mainnet configuration remains subject to testing and developer decisions. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
ePBS Changes How Ethereum Builds Blocks
Glamsterdam also includes enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS), which moves the division between block proposers and specialized block builders into Ethereum’s protocol. The change is intended to allow validators to safely outsource block construction without relying on external software and intermediaries in the same way they do today.
Combined with block-level access lists, the architecture is designed to make higher throughput more practical while improving the efficiency and trust assumptions surrounding block production. Ethereum’s development teams are still testing these components on devnets, meaning the technical configuration is not final. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
What Ethereum Investors Are Watching Next
The next major milestone is the proposed October 6 Sepolia fork, which will provide a longer-lived public test of Glamsterdam before any mainnet deployment. Ethereum.org currently lists Glamsterdam as a Q4 2026 upgrade with no confirmed mainnet date. Investors will therefore watch client interoperability, gas-limit testing and application compatibility closely. The outcome of those tests will determine whether Ethereum can translate its current performance gains into a sustainable increase in network capacity.
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