ePBS, Block-Level Access Lists, and EIP-8037 repricings combine to unlock a 200M gas limit floor, a throughput jump that could keep network fees pinned for years.
Ethereum core contributors gathered above the Arctic Circle in Longyearbyen, Svalbard last week for the Soldøgn Interop, where they aligned on a post-Glamsterdam gas limit floor of 200M, according to a recap published Saturday by Ethereum Foundation protocol support lead Tim Beiko.
That target represents roughly a 3.3x jump from the network’s current 60M gas limit, unlocked by three Glamsterdam workstreams that converged during the week.
The first is enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS), which restructures slot timing with explicit deadlines for block construction, payload reveal, and attestations, giving execution more headroom.
The second is Block-Level Access Lists, specified in EIP-7928, which let clients pre-fetch a block’s read/write set, enabling parallel execution, batched I/O, and parallel state-root computation. The third is EIP-8037, which raises the cost of writing new state, so the higher gas limit doesn’t translate into runaway state growth. Teams dropped an earlier dynamic per-state-byte model in favor of a fixed cost during the week, simplifying both testing and benchmarking.
Smaller Glamsterdam EIPs were also closed out at the interop. EIP-8061 (exit/consolidation churn increase) is in, EIP-8080 (exits via the consolidation queue) was declined, and EIP-8045 was scoped down to proposer duties within the look-ahead window only.
Implications For Fees
A threefold increase in L1 execution capacity, without a matching surge in demand, is likely to keep base fees suppressed. That directly throttles the EIP-1559 burn that has anchored ETH’s “ultrasound money” thesis since the Merge. DeFiLlama data shows that Ethereum’s network fees have been trending lower over the past few years, and Beiko flagged that a further doubling of the gas limit is expected “soon after” Glamsterdam.
The bull case is that a cheaper, faster L1 pulls back activity that has migrated to L2s, including DeFi flows, tokenized RWAs, and the institutional ETH treasury strategies increasingly leaning on credible scaling. The bear case is that fees stay pinned, ETH issuance turns more inflationary, and the monetary premium on the asset compresses further.
Beiko noted that the 200M target and final repricing numbers will be confirmed on upcoming AllCoreDevs calls. Glamsterdam is expected to ship in the coming months, with the Hegotá fork queued up next.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
