Ethereum Test Network Raises Block Limit to Over 3x Its Current Capacity

In brief

• Ethereum's Sepolia testnet activated Glamsterdam on October 6 at epoch 353,024, with a block gas limit of nearly 200 million, more than three times mainnet's 60 million.
• Sepolia blocks 11,872,013 through 11,872,037 used between 47.1 million and 85.9 million gas, roughly 24% to 43% of the limit.
• The announcement sets no date for the Hoodi testnet and schedules no mainnet upgrade, so mainnet's limit stays at 60 million for now.

Ethereum's Sepolia test network activated the Glamsterdam upgrade on October 6 and began producing blocks with a gas limit of nearly 200 million, more than three times the 60 million that Ethereum's main network allows. Gas is the unit that measures computing work on Ethereum, and the gas limit caps how much of that work fits into a single block.

The 200 million figure was scheduled in a commit tied to epoch 353,024, a 6.4-minute time marker in Ethereum's calendar that began at 13:53:36 UTC.

Blocks used only a fraction of that room. A snapshot of 25 consecutive blocks on Etherscan taken on October 8, numbers 11,872,013 through 11,872,037, shows gas use at roughly 24% to 43% of the limit.

A higher ceiling does not mean three times as many transactions, only that a block can hold more when demand shows up. For everyday users, that headroom is what helps keep fees from spiking when many people use Ethereum at once, because congestion feels like strangers outbidding each other to get into the next block.