Ethereum’s biggest protocol overhaul in years moves into its final development stage

TechEthereum’s biggest protocol overhaul in years moves into its final development stageDevelopers are entering the final stretch of work on Glamsterdam, the network's next major upgrade, as teams begin testing a version of the fork in a closed environment.By Margaux Nijkerk|Edited by Jamie Crawley Jun 16, 2026, 2:48 p.m. 2 min readMake preferred on ShareShare this articleCopy linkX iconX (Twitter)LinkedInFacebookEmailMake preferred on SummaryShowEthereum developers have entered the final development phase of Glamsterdam, running devnets with all planned EIPs before moving to testnets. The upgrade, expected in the second half of the year, is being described as one of the network’s biggest changes since the Merge.Ethereum developers are entering the final stretch of work on Glamsterdam, the network's next major upgrade, as teams begin testing a version of the fork that includes the planned protocol changes.Developers are currently running developer networks, or "devnets", early testing environments used by Ethereum developers to trial new code and protocol changes before they reach public testnets, containing the full suite of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) slated for the upgrade, marking what they describe as the final phase before the codebase is hardened and deployed to public testnets."We're working on devnets with all the EIPs in them right now," said Parithosh Jayanthi, a core developer at a devops engineer at the Ethereum Foundation. "This is the last phase before we work on hardening and then shipping the testnets. There's no fixed timeline, but we've made massive progress."While a firm activation date for the upgrade has yet to be determined, Glamsterdam is currently expected to go live during the second half of the year.The upgrade is shaping up to be one of Ethereum's most ambitious since the network's transition to proof-of-stake in 2022. Jayanthi described Glamsterdam as "probably the largest fork we've had since the Merge," adding that it will…

Ethereum’s biggest protocol overhaul in years moves into its final development stage

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