Glamsterdam Activates On Sepolia Testnet

Happy Tuesday, October 6, 2026.

Glamsterdam goes live on the Sepolia testnet. EtherFi introduces its native stablecoin. Validators consolidate 16 million ETH. And Abstract Chain winds down its L2.

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Glamsterdam Activates On Sepolia

The Glamsterdam hard fork activated on the Sepolia testnet on October 6th at 13:53 UTC at epoch 353,024, marking the second of three public testnets to undergo the upgrade. The activation on Sepolia finalized at 14:24 UTC. Glamsterdam is Ethereum's next upgrade focused on scaling the L1, bringing ePBS, Block-Level Access Lists, gas repricings, and a gas limit increase from 60 million to 200 million.

Enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS) moves the separation of block building and proposing into the protocol. Block-Level Access Lists make state access explicit, allowing transactions to be processed in parallel when their data dependencies do not overlap. Gas repricing accounts for the costs of state growth and access as execution capacity increases. Glamsterdam is tentatively scheduled to activate on the Hoodi on October 26 and on mainnet as soon as December 2, 2026, pending confirmation.

EtherFi Introduces Native Stablecoin

ether.fi, a LST protocol and neobank, introduced ether.fi USD, its native US dollar-denominated stablecoin powered by Ethena’s whitelabel infrastructure. The neobank holds more than $300 million in stablecoins across its platform. The launch will make stablecoins native across its products. Ethena will manage reserves, minting and redemption, and compliance.

The launch follows growth in ether.fi’s Cash card, introduced in 2024, which has processed nearly $1 billion in cumulative spend across more than 100,000 active cards. The product allows users to earn spend from their crypto balance, which earns yield while it sits deployed across DeFi, as well as cash back rewards. ether.fi joins Maple Finance and MegaETH in building stablecoin products on Ethena infrastructure.

ArbitrumDAO Eyes USDG Adoption

Entropy Advisors proposed for the ArbitrumDAO to position USDG as a native stablecoin layer for Arbitrum, signaling a coordinated push to anchor stablecoin liquidity within the ecosystem rather than relying solely on third-party issuers. USDG is a dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Paxos. It sits at the center of the Global Dollar Network (GDN), a consortium of companies that distribute and use the token.

The Global Dollar Network is a group of 150+ enterprise partners, including Kraken and Robinhood. Rewards accrue to network partners based on the USDG they hold, mint, and accept, and each partner decides how to use those rewards. The ArbitrumDAO would become a GDN partner under the proposal, which is currently in the forum discussion stage ahead of a formal governance vote.

Validators Consolidate 16 Million ETH

Ethereum validators have consolidated over 16 million ETH using 0x02 withdrawal credentials. The network now has 865 active validators, down from a peak of 1 million validators in 2025. Lido is leading the consolidation with the ongoing migration of its 8.4 million staked ETH from Lido Core to its new Curated Module v2. Lido will consolidate more than 265,000 validators into about 4,000 active validators.

The consolidation is possible due to MaxEB, introduced in Pectra, which increased the maximum effective validator balance from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH. MaxEB allows major operators to consolidate thousands of validators, significantly reducing operational overhead. Consolidation also reduces redundant validator operations, including excess beacon node instances, P2P messaging, and BLS signature aggregation, improving infrastructure efficiency and streamlining consensus workloads. Fewer active validator indices enable faster finality times on Ethereum.

Abstract Winds Down L2

Abstract is winding down its L2 after almost three years. Users are advised to move their assets off the chain as soon as possible. The chain will shut down on December 15, 2026, after which funds will become inaccessible. Users can bridge through the migration hub or the native rollup bridge. Abstract attributed the wind down to its consumer-focused model being unsustainable as a standalone business. Abstract was built on ZKsync’s Elastic Network.

Misc News

The DOJ sends a letter to SDNY aiming to retry Roman Storm. Explore Glamsterdam EIPs on Sepolia. Privy Earn supports Aave yield.

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