Ethereum Core Developers Delay Glamsterdam Upgrade Over Smart Contract Vulnerabilities

Ethereum core developers have paused the Glamsterdam upgrade schedule and halted plans to fork the Hoodi testnet after security audits uncovered contract vulnerabilities tied to pending gas modifications, according to an update published by the Ethereum Foundation on Nov. 6 ¹.

Security firm Chainsecurity identified several projects that would become vulnerable following the activation of Glamsterdam ¹. The risks stem from assumptions and invariants that are invalidated by EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, two proposals that overhaul operation gas pricing and state storage fee mechanics ¹. In response to the discoveries, All Core Devs (ACD) opted to stall the upgrade rollout until the technical complications are resolved ¹. The postponement follows earlier testnet milestones, including testing on the Sepolia testnet, as developers work to establish network stability before pushing changes downstream.

Auditing Calls and Next Steps

To prevent application failures, the Ethereum Foundation has called on external smart contract developers and protocol auditors to evaluate their repositories ¹. Foundation researchers noted that internal teams and hired auditing firms cannot comprehensively test every decentralized application across the ecosystem ¹. Developers have released a public repository outlining eight specific invariants broken by Glamsterdam, complete with technical explanations and verification prompts, asking affected teams to report exposures to the core development group ¹.

Core developers are currently assessing whether protocol-level specification adjustments can mitigate the risks without discarding the efficiency objectives of the underlying Ethereum Improvement Proposals ¹. At the time of writing, $ETH traded at $2,237, down 7.4% over the past 24 hours, amid broader market weakness where $BTC declined 5.3% to $76,075.