Ethereum Postpones Glamsterdam Upgrade on Hoodi Testnet Following Security Concerns
Ethereum developers have delayed the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade on a major test network after discovering security risks in smart contracts.
Ethereum Postpones Glamsterdam Upgrade on Hoodi Testnet Following Security Concerns
Ethereum developers have delayed the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade on a major test network after discovering security risks in smart contracts.
Glamsterdam upgrade postponed on Hoodi testnet
Ethereum developers have decided to postpone the highly anticipated Glamsterdam upgrade on a major test network after identifying potential security risks that could impact existing smart contracts. According to the Ethereum Foundation, the upgrade was originally scheduled to take place on the Hoodi testnet on October 26 but will no longer proceed as planned.
The recent development introduces uncertainty around Ethereum's timeline to deliver the upgrade before the conclusion of 2026. The milestone had already been pushed beyond its initial target for the first half of the year, and while developers previously considered activation dates in early December, a final mainnet schedule has not been locked in.
Christine Kim, founder of research firm Protocol Watch, initially brought the cancellation to light. She advised Hoodi node operators to roll back to older software versions or install updated execution clients that remove the scheduled activation.
Gas-accounting changes spark security concerns
The postponement stems from discussions during the All Core Developers Execution meeting on October 22. Participants agreed to pause the deployment to further investigate EIP-8037 and its interactions with smart contracts currently running on the mainnet.
The delay also puts a temporary halt on a planned increase to Hoodi's gas limit, which was set to reach 200 million. This increase was intended to test the network's capacity to handle significantly larger transaction volumes, though the existing transaction history of the network remains entirely unaffected.
Security audits highlighted potential vulnerabilities tied to proposed alterations in Ethereum's gas-accounting structure. An October 13 report from blockchain security firm ChainSecurity warned that two specific gas proposals could jeopardize safeguards used by applications to differentiate failed transactions from valid operations.
Real-world risks found in deployed applications
ChainSecurity reported that its ongoing investigation has already uncovered 13 real-world examples of vulnerable deployed applications. The firm has initiated responsible disclosure with the affected projects, urging developers to audit their smart contracts immediately.
The identified issues primarily impact decentralized finance applications that manage withdrawals, batched transactions, and other processes dependent on automated failure recovery. Under current execution rules, failed operations consume allocated gas and can leave insufficient resources for completion instructions, causing the wider transaction to revert.
However, the proposed changes under Glamsterdam could alter this behavior by releasing some gas during execution. This shift might allow contracts that previously would have reverted to finish instructions instead, potentially recording operations as permanently unsuccessful and creating openings for attacks.
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