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Two developers have filed competing draft proposals to reduce the risk that Ethereum’s planned Glamsterdam upgrade will cause older smart contracts to fail. One would preserve current gas rates for existing contracts; the other would apply the new rates while separately accounting for older contracts. Neither proposal has a target date, and Rebuffo’s draft has not been tested in execution-client implementations or consensus tests.
Two Ethereum developers have filed competing draft proposals to reduce the risk that the planned Glamsterdam upgrade will break older smart contracts by raising the gas costs of certain operations. One proposal would retain current rates for contracts already deployed, while the other would apply new rates but use separate accounting to preserve older contracts’ execution. Neither draft has a target date.
The proposals respond to EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, which are part of Glamsterdam and would increase gas fees for creating and accessing stored data. Gas measures the computational steps a smart contract performs. Under EIP-8037, the base charge for creating a contract would rise from 32,000 gas to 183,600, before code-storage and execution costs are added.
Leo Glisic’s draft, EIP-8488, would divide Ethereum’s instruction set between existing and new contracts. Existing contracts would retain what the draft calls the “legacy schedule”; new contracts would need to use V2 opcodes with the revised gas schedule. Giulio Rebuffo’s alternative would use two gas meters per transaction: one tracks execution under the old rules, while the other uses the new schedule to calculate the fee.
The concern is that some applications were built around the current cost of calling other contracts. If those calls become more expensive, a fixed gas allowance may no longer cover them, causing a transaction or application function to fail. Some deployed contracts cannot be updated, so developers may not be able to adjust them after a change in costs.
How Gas Changes Could Affect Users
The dispute matters because Ethereum’s gas schedule affects how existing applications operate, not only the cost of launching new ones. If a contract’s assumptions about gas no longer hold, a call it relies on could fail. That could disrupt services built on the network, including applications that hold or manage users’ funds. The source report identifies this as a potential risk; it does not establish that the proposals’ feared failures have occurred.
The two drafts also represent different approaches to compatibility. Glisic’s design would give older and newer contracts different schedules, while Rebuffo’s would preserve old-rule execution alongside new-rule fee calculations. Any adopted solution would need to address how contracts are classified or how both meters work in practice, as well as how client software implements the change. The drafts alone do not show that either approach is technically ready or will be selected.
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Glamsterdam’s Gas Repricing Plans
Glamsterdam is Ethereum’s planned major software upgrade and is being tested on a network separate from the live blockchain. Test networks let developers evaluate changes before those changes affect transactions involving real assets. The proposed gas increases are intended to change the pricing of particular operations involving stored data, but the resulting compatibility risk has prompted scrutiny of how older code would behave.
The upgrade’s testing has already faced a delay. A second rehearsal scheduled for Oct. 26 was postponed after security researchers raised concerns about the repricing. According to the report, developers estimated on Oct. 29 that the next private test would take place no earlier than Nov. 16–20. That estimate was made before Glisic and Rebuffo filed their drafts, and it is not a confirmed date for either proposal’s testing or adoption.
“IMHO, Glamsterdam should not be shipped in its current form, period.”
— Security researcher pcaversaccio, writing on X
Drafts Face Testing and Design Questions
Neither proposal is final, and the source report gives no target date for testing, review, or adoption. It is not clear whether Ethereum’s developers will prefer one design, combine elements of both, or pursue another fix. Rebuffo’s draft explicitly says that no execution-client implementation or consensus tests have been run; the report does not provide equivalent implementation details for Glisic’s proposal.
The scale of possible effects is also unsettled. Banteg cited a list of 200,000 affected contracts and said methodological issues could mean it misses additional cases. That is his assessment, not a confirmed count of contracts that would fail. The report does not specify which applications would be affected in practice, how many could be repaired, or whether either proposal would prevent all compatibility problems.
Next Glamsterdam Test Milestones
Ethereum developers are expected to continue evaluating the gas-repricing changes and the compatibility concerns before Glamsterdam is shipped. The next private test was estimated on Oct. 29 to take place no earlier than Nov. 16–20, but that schedule predates the two proposals and should not be read as a confirmed test date for either design.
Further details will depend on whether either draft receives technical review, implementation work, and testing. Until those steps are reported, the proposed fixes remain options rather than adopted changes, and the eventual Glamsterdam schedule and treatment of older contracts remain unsettled.
Key Questions
What are the two Ethereum proposals trying to prevent?
They aim to reduce the risk that Glamsterdam’s planned gas-cost increases cause older smart contracts to fail when they perform operations priced under the new schedule.
How do the proposals differ?
Leo Glisic’s EIP-8488 would keep the current gas schedule for existing contracts and require new contracts to use the revised schedule. Giulio Rebuffo’s draft would apply the new fee schedule while separately tracking execution under the old rules.
Have either of the proposals been adopted?
No. Both are draft proposals, and neither has a target date in the report. Rebuffo’s draft says it has not been tested in an execution-client implementation or in consensus tests.
Why could a gas-cost increase break an older contract?
Some contracts rely on fixed gas amounts when calling other contracts. If the cost of an operation rises above that allowance, the call may fail. Some contracts cannot be updated after deployment, limiting the ability to change their code.
When is the next Glamsterdam test?
Developers estimated on Oct. 29 that the next private test would take place no earlier than Nov. 16–20. That estimate came before these proposals were filed, and the report does not confirm a test date for either one.
Source: coindesk.com
