Hardware Ready Ready to Bench?
On October 22, key Ethereum developers decided to cancel the activation of the ‘Glamsterdam’ upgrade on the Hoodi test network. The move was taken in response to an analysis published on October 13 by security firm ChainSecurity, which highlighted potential risks for existing smart contracts. Activation had initially been scheduled for October 26 at 17:42:48 UTC.
Why it matters
The Glamsterdam upgrade introduces significant changes to the gas fee mechanism, particularly through EIP-8037 and EIP-8038. According to ChainSecurity, the combination of these proposals could alter contract behavior in cases of gas exhaustion or execution errors. In a specific scenario, an operation handling an error might complete partially instead of reverting the entire transaction, turning a provable situation into a permanent failure for users.
Christine D. Kim, founder of Protocol Watch, confirmed the cancellation and urged Hoodi node operators to revert to previous software versions or install updated clients to avoid issues. Security researcher pcaversaccio emphasized that the findings require a technical re-evaluation of the hard fork, although he is not the sole decision-maker.
The numbers
ChainSecurity identified 13 real-world examples of smart contracts potentially affected by the proposed changes. The firm is currently engaged in a responsible disclosure process with the involved projects to manage vulnerabilities before any new activation.
Technically, the upgrade also planned an increase of the gas limit to 200 million on the Hoodi testnet, a configuration that has been removed from shared files along with the fork dates. For comparison, the estimated cost to create a new storage slot under old rules was approximately 22,100 gas, while under new rules, in case of allocation exhaustion, the cost would rise to approximately 110,020 gas.
What remains unclear
A new date for the Hoodi test activation and a certain timeline for mainnet have not yet been established. Candidate dates for the main launch, which depended on the success of Hoodi tests, were indicated for December 1, 8, and 9. Currently, there are no public confirmations that production protocols are already exploitable via these mechanisms or if existing contracts are undergoing active attacks.
Sources: CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, Unchained, CryptoSlate, Block Media.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or an investment recommendation.
* Content created with the assistance of artificial intelligence systems.