Ethereum’s ‘Glamsterdam’ upgrade aims to fix MEV fairness

Tech Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Ethereum’s ‘Glamsterdam’ upgrade aims to fix MEV fairness The full scope of Glamsterdam has not yet been finalized, but developers are targeting it to go live in 2026. By AI Boost , Margaux Nijkerk | Edited by Nikhilesh De Dec 20, 2025, 7:00 p.m. What to know : Ethereum developers, fresh off last month’s successful Fusaka upgrade, which cut down costs for nodes , are already moving full-steam ahead on planning the blockchain’s next major change. Glamsterdam is a two simultaneous upgrades taking place on Ethereum’s two core layers. At the heart of the upgrade is ePBS and Block-level Access Lists. Developers haven't decided on the full scope of the upgrade but are targeting it for 2026. Ethereum developers, fresh off last month’s successful Fusaka upgrade, which cut down costs for nodes , are already moving full-steam ahead on planning the blockchain’s next major change. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the The Protocol Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Enter “Glamsterdam.” The name is a portmanteau of two simultaneous upgrades taking place on Ethereum’s two core layers. The execution layer, where transaction rules and smart contracts live, will undergo the Amsterdam upgrade, while the consensus layer, which coordinates validators and finalizes blocks, will see an upgrade known as Gloas. At the heart of Glamsterdam is enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS), formally tracked as EIP-7732. The proposal would bake into Ethereum’s core protocol a rule that separates nodes who build blocks from those who propose them, preventing any single actor from controlling which transactions are included or how they are ordered. Today, this separation largely relies on off-chain services known as relays, which introduces trust assumptions and centralization risks. Under ePBS, block builders would assemble blocks and cryptographically seal their contents, while proposers would simply choose the highest-paying block without being able to see or tamper with what’s inside. The transactions would only be revealed after the block is finalized, reducing opportunities for manipulation and abuse related to MEV, or maximal extractable value — the extra profit validators or builders can make by reordering, inserting or censoring transactions. Another proposal slated for Glamsterdam is Block-level Access Lists (EIP-7928), an under-the-hood change that allows a block to declare in advance which accounts and smart-contract data it will access. Rather than discovering this information transaction by transaction, Ethereum software — known as clients — can preload and reuse data more efficiently, making block execution faster, more predictable, and easier to optimize. The change could help smooth gas costs and lay important groundwork for future scaling improvements. Both ePBS and Block-level Access Lists are examples of Ethereum Improvement Proposals, or EIPs, which are formal proposals that outline changes to the protocol and serve as the main coordination mechanism for Ethereum’s development process. The full scope of Glamsterdam has not yet been finalized, with additional EIPs expected to be selected over the coming weeks. As for timing, developers have not committed to a specific date, but have indicated the upgrade is likely to take place sometime in 2026. Read more: Ethereum Activates Fusaka Upgrade, Aiming to Cut Node Costs, Speed Layer-2 Settlements Ethereum News Upgrade AI Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards . For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy . More For You Protocol Research: GoPlus Security By CoinDesk Research Nov 14, 2025 Commissioned by GoPlus What to know : As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M. GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month. 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