On November 6, the Ethereum Foundation posted a request for application developers and auditors to evaluate eight gas‑related assumptions tied to the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade. The appeal follows a postponement of the Hoodi testnet’s planned October 26 activation and a 200 million gas‑limit increase, which was delayed on October 22 pending resolution of the identified issues. Core developers say they cannot audit every contract and off‑chain service themselves, so they need input from the broader ecosystem to decide whether the proposed EIP‑8037 and EIP‑8038 changes require further revision.

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New state‑gas model and its risks

EIP‑8037 would separate the cost of creating persistent blockchain data from execution gas, introducing a “state‑gas reservoir” that funds state writes when a transaction’s gas limit exceeds 16,777,216. Under the current Solidity gasleft() semantics, this reservoir is invisible to contracts, meaning a relayer that measures gas before and after execution could miscalculate reimbursements. If the later gas reading is higher, a checked subtraction would revert, potentially blocking the transaction; an unchecked subtraction could wrap and lead to over‑reimbursement. The proposal also changes how failed delegations (EIP‑7702) are handled, allowing a transaction that runs out of gas during pre‑execution to leave an exposed, reusable authorization, opening a vector for front‑running attacks.

Proposed mitigations and developer guidance

The Ethereum team suggests several safeguards: signing a fee estimate that respects the new accounting rules, clamping subtraction results, and capping payments at a user‑signed maximum. An open specification pull request (PR #12581) aims to prevent gas readings from increasing, which would solve the subtraction issue but not the blind spot created by the reservoir. For delegation risks, wallets could bind initialization to the account’s signature or invalidate exposed authorizations, while charging worst‑case costs upfront remains an unadopted protocol change.

What to watch next

The repository created by the foundation now collects responses from affected projects about needed settings, upgrades, or migrations, and their timelines. These inputs will shape the next round of specification discussions and determine whether the Glamsterdam upgrade proceeds as planned or requires further adjustments. The mainnet activation date remains unset, and the outcome will depend on how many dApps can accommodate the new gas model without compromising security or usability.