Ethereum’s upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade could more than triple the network's L1 execution capacity, according to btcusa.com.
Recent discussions suggest the network's gas limit may rise to approximately 200 million, a significant jump from the current 60 million limit. This expansion could fundamentally reprice the debate surrounding Layer 1 scaling.
Industry figure Hasu recently highlighted this potential capacity increase, noting that the move represents a structural shift in how much work the Ethereum mainnet can process.
If the network can absorb the load without compromising decentralization, validator performance, state growth, or block propagation, the long-held assumption that the Ethereum mainnet must remain expensive by design may no longer hold true.
Scaling through architectural efficiency
The Ethereum Foundation’s Soldøgn interoperability event recap indicates that the goal is to harden Glamsterdam implementations and establish a credible gas limit floor.
Increasing the gas limit is a multi-dimensional challenge involving block construction, client headroom, and state-creation costs. The network is focused on making larger blocks less dangerous rather than simply increasing block size.
One primary component of the upgrade is Enshrimed Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS). This mechanism moves the proposer-builder relationship into the protocol itself to reduce trust dependencies on off-protocol middleware and relays.
According to the ethereum.org Glamsterdam roadmap, ePBS restructures slots by adding deadlines for block construction, payload reveal, and attestations. This provides a clearer pipeline for the protocol to handle higher execution loads without increasing missed slots or instability.
Another critical feature is Block-Level Access Lists (BALs). Currently, Ethereum clients often lack visibility into which accounts and storage slots a block will touch until execution occurs, making parallelization difficult.
BALs act as a map included in every block, informing the network of necessary database access before work begins. This allows nodes to preload data and perform parallel disk reads more efficiently.
Ethereum.org notes that BALs support parallel execution, batched I/O, and parallel state-root computation. These technical improvements allow the network to use modern hardware more effectively without forcing a transition to a data-center-only system.
This shift toward increased L1 capacity arrives as institutional interest in Ethereum grows. btcusa.com reports that large holders and public companies are increasingly treating Ethereum as productive infrastructure rather than passive inventory.
