Ethereum confirms Glamsterdam dates, but warns 'fake' builders could stall the chain
“I can just spin up a thousand builders, rotate them, offer very high bids, and not produce payloads,” Ethereum consensus developer Potuz said during Thursday’s core developer call. “Any teenager can do this.”
Developers said existing safeguards typically fall back to locally built blocks only after several payloads go missing. Potuz added that clients also need to identify and reject individual builders so an attacker cannot return under a new identity and continue winning.
The warning came one day after a large private rehearsal completed the Glamsterdam transition and raised its block gas limit toward 200 million without losing finality.
Read More: Ethereum’s upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade clears rehearsal for a big jump in capacity
Client teams now have until Sept. 29 to release Sepolia-ready software. That leaves seven days before the fork, half the 14 days Ethereum’s normal upgrade process reserves for security reviews and bug-bounty testing.
Developers accepted the narrower window because Sepolia is relatively centralized and easier to recover if something breaks. Production builder software operated by teams Titan and Ultrasound has also not completed a Glamsterdam fork transition, adding another gap before the upgrade can be treated as mainnet-ready.
The next public test on Hoodi is tentatively planned for Oct. 27. Developers will decide whether to keep that date after observing Sepolia, while a mainnet activation remains unscheduled.