Ethereum is preparing for a significant scaling enhancement as its development team plans to raise the gas limit on the Hoodi testnet to 200 million on October 26. This technical milestone arrives as ETH continues to face selling pressure, with prices struggling to recover from declines seen earlier in October.
Major testnet upgrade targets network efficiency
The Ethereum Foundation announced that the Glamsterdam upgrade will go live on the Hoodi testnet at 17:42:48 UTC, following its initial rollout on Sepolia on October 6. The upgrade is designed to optimize block production, transaction execution, and the overall efficiency of the Ethereum network.
While the timing for Glamsterdam’s debut on Ethereum mainnet remains unconfirmed, the current focus is on evaluating its performance in the testnet environment before a broader deployment is considered.
A central feature of Glamsterdam is its combination of multiple protocol-level advancements, including enshrined proposer-builder separation, block-level access lists, and updates to how gas usage is calculated within blocks.
The planned increase to a 200-million gas limit on Hoodi is a sharp rise from the previous 60-million level, marking more than a threefold jump in capacity for block processing.
Set at this level, the upgrade could significantly boost throughput, allowing for more transactions to be processed within each block as long as network validators remain capable of handling the increased workload efficiently.
| Testnet | Previous Gas Limit | New Gas Limit | Glamsterdam Rollout Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sepolia | 60 million | 200 million | October 6 |
| Hoodi | 60 million | 200 million | October 26 |
Additional features include improvements to how clients access blockchain state and validate transactions, with block-level access lists designed to enhance parallel processing capabilities. Revised gas rules will provide more precise accounting for resource-heavy operations.
Previous 200-million gas testing on Ethereum’s Layer-1 focused on whether increased capacity could be achieved without imposing unsustainable demands on network operators.
Despite this technological progress, analysts caution that higher capacity does not guarantee a rise in ETH’s price. Reduced transaction costs may emerge from these improvements, but effects on Ethereum’s fee revenue and the token’s burning mechanism will ultimately depend on real network usage.
Mini dictionary: Enshrined proposer-builder separation is a protocol feature that separates the responsibilities of proposing and building blocks within Ethereum, aiming to increase decentralization and improve network resilience against certain types of manipulation common in traditional block production systems.
ETH price under pressure amid technical progress
On October 18, ETH traded in the $2,400–$2,425 range, down around 11% from its early-October peak near $2,726. This placed Ethereum at a key support region as developers advanced one of the network’s most ambitious scaling initiatives.
Since reaching $2,726 on October 5, ETH has retreated, losing the $2,500 support level during a broader market decline. The cryptocurrency is now stabilizing near $2,400, regarded as a psychologically important threshold by traders.
ETH would need a move above $2,445–$2,485 to strengthen its immediate recovery prospects, with $2,500 set as the next key resistance. If bulls regain momentum beyond this point, the $2,560–$2,600 region may represent the next upside target, while a sustained drop below $2,400 could see prices test $2,350 or even $2,300 if selling persists.
Compared to the previous outlook around the Glamsterdam upgrade, when ETH traded near $2,680 and market expectations pointed toward $2,800, the current landscape appears more fragile.
The scheduled October 26 deployment on Hoodi stands out as a tangible development milestone for the Ethereum roadmap, although its market impact remains unclear in the short term.
A successful launch on Hoodi would advance Glamsterdam toward mainnet readiness and may bolster confidence in Ethereum’s broader scaling path. However, any disruption, such as compatibility challenges or underwhelming testnet performance, could temper this optimism.
While Glamsterdam strengthens the narrative around Ethereum’s technical evolution, a renewed rally in ETH will still require increased market demand and positive sentiment beyond the testnet milestones.
For investors and users, the immediate challenge centers on the $2,400 support level versus the possibility of reclaiming $2,500 and targeting higher resistance zones into the $2,600 range.
