On November 10, a technical discussion that should have revolved around progress and roadmaps was suddenly put on hold. The independent non-profit research and development organization Ethlabs released the "Tracking Glamsterdam Discussions," which clearly suggested that no final decision should be made regarding the Ethereum Glamsterdam upgrade before the external audit has provided a conclusion, nor should the timeline for the fork and upgrade of the Hoodi testnet be determined, let alone prematurely modify the current upgrade specifications. Ethlabs has been closely monitoring key pieces of the puzzle in Glamsterdam—EIP-8037 and EIP-8038—for over two weeks. These proposals directly impact Ethereum's gas costs and billing mechanism, potentially affecting some already deployed smart contracts and exposing existing contracts to unquantified uncertainties. Alongside Ethlabs' internal analysis, the Ethereum Foundation has commissioned Chain Security and Dedaub to conduct external audits, with two reports expected to be released by November 16, marking a hard deadline in this game: on one side is the pressure to finalize the specifications and advance the Hoodi testnet, while on the other side is the security anxiety caused by a lack of a proper understanding of the real risks of EIP-8037/8038. From Ethlabs' public recommendation, which is cautiously worded but clearly stated, it appears that Ethereum is currently choosing a conservative path of "audit first, decision later."

Gas Rules to be Rewritten: Old Contracts Become Invisible Landmines

From Ethlabs' perspective, EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 in Glamsterdam are not aimed at changing the "business rules" set by project parties, but rather to change the "electricity price list" and settlement methods of the entire chain—specifically, how much gas to pay for each operation and how to account for it. For ordinary users, contract addresses and function interfaces will not suddenly change the way they play due to these two proposals, but at the foundational level, if the cost of each instruction and the economic incentives behind the packaging order are rewritten, it means that all contracts will be running in a new billing environment, which is also why Ethlabs is fixated on these two EIPs.

The problem is that a large number of smart contracts deployed over the past few years were designed, audited, and verified under the old gas rules. Ethlabs is concerned that once the billing logic changes, contracts that were originally "running just fine" may exhibit unexpected behaviors at boundary conditions—some functions may become prohibitively expensive under the new cost structure, leading to an increase in the frequency of failure paths, while others may expose risks previously unnoticed due to changes in calling patterns. Recognizing that such "invisible landmines" cannot be predicted with mere guesswork, Ethlabs has already been monitoring and analyzing the potentially affected deployed contracts related to EIP-8037/8038 for over two weeks before November 10, establishing a cautious public stance based on continuous risk assessment rather than impulsive emotional swings.

Ethlabs Presses the Pause Button: No Specification Changes, No Schedule

Following this internal monitoring and risk assessment, Ethlabs condensed its position into three clear "pause buttons" in its public article on November 10: until the potential impact of EIP-8037/EIP-8038 on newly deployed contracts is fully understood and until Chain Security and Dedaub have provided their conclusions on the external audit, there will be no final decision on the Glamsterdam mainnet upgrade; similarly, the fork/upgrade schedule for the Hoodi testnet will not be confirmed until the audit results are released and a clear judgment is formed; meanwhile, before the audit conclusions are clarified, there will be no changes to the currently written Glamsterdam upgrade specifications, effectively freezing the specifications themselves to avoid repeated swings in an environment of insufficient information.

These three "pauses" effectively lock Glamsterdam back into the "open discussion + risk assessment" stage: how EIP-8037/EIP-8038 adjusts gas costs and billing mechanisms, and whether it will have an unacceptable impact on certain legacy contracts, remains a question awaiting data and audit reports for answers; the technical route is not considered a foregone conclusion. For an Ethereum development organization described as independent and non-profit, this approach of setting external audits as decision gates continues the community's long-standing governance practice of "safety first"—preferring to allocate time for analysis and verification rather than pushing the entire chain into an irreversible upgrade path in the presence of potential blind spots.

Double External Audits Come into Play: Foundation Installs Bumpers

As Ethlabs wrote "let's talk about upgrades after the audit conclusions" in its public recommendation, the Ethereum Foundation also did not treat the risks as abstract debates. According to public information, the Foundation has commissioned the third-party security audit agencies Chain Security and Dedaub to assess the most controversial EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 in the Glamsterdam upgrade. The focus is not on whether the proposal text is standardized, but on whether these adjustments to gas costs and billing mechanisms will "hit" the already deployed smart contracts that are running business logic when they operate on the mainnet.

The task for these two agencies has been clearly locked onto a specific question: without changing existing contract code, whether changes in underlying fee and billing rules will alter the behavioral boundaries of these contracts, potentially triggering paths that were not anticipated in the original design. In other words, the audit must answer whether there can be a safe connection between the existing state on-chain and the new rules, rather than simply stamping a "pass/fail" mark. According to current arrangements, Chain Security and Dedaub's audit results are expected to be publicly released by November 16, which is also seen as a primary reference coordinate for the Ethereum community to decide whether Glamsterdam should proceed as planned or whether key proposals need to be adjusted or even rewritten.

Upgrade Pace Slowed, How Will the Ethereum Ecosystem Respond?

Under the premise of Ethlabs recommending "wait for audit conclusions before making decisions," the entire ecosystem is truly facing governance uncertainties regarding when decisions will be made and who will endorse them, rather than the technical interruption risks of whether nodes will suddenly crash tomorrow. With Glamsterdam's timeline yet to be locked, and the Hoodi testnet fork/upgrade schedule intentionally left blank, developers must continue to maintain existing versions during a "pending" window while closely monitoring whether EIP-8037/EIP-8038 needs to be rewritten or postponed due to risks to legacy contracts.

Until the external audit results are released, practical project parties will likely keep actions within their own control: on one hand, conducting internal self-checks on their contracts to assess whether they highly rely on existing gas billing boundaries; on the other hand, they tend to delay significant revisions that tightly bind to new gas logic, changing the roadmap from "betting on timely upgrades" to "first adapt to the current rules and then fine-tune based on the results." Ethlabs and the audit agencies will focus on the potential impact of EIP-8037/EIP-8038 on deployed contracts, rather than the new functionality itself. Moreover, the current public materials have not provided any data on prices, transaction volumes, or other quantifiable on-chain indicators, reminding the market that the main signal released by Glamsterdam at this moment is one of security and governance—currently more like a collective drill regarding risk boundaries and decision procedures, rather than a technical shock that would immediately shake the operational state on-chain.

From This Game, Observing Ethereum's Security Bottom Line

Looking back at the tug-of-war surrounding Glamsterdam, the clearest signal is that when changes could potentially affect a large number of legacy contracts, Ethereum governance is more inclined to hit the pause button, prioritizing safety certainty over "hard-rushing" upgrades for the sake of timelines and roadmaps. Ethlabs, in its article on November 10, clearly advocated that before the external audits from Chain Security and Dedaub conclude, it is not advisable to decisively finalize the Glamsterdam upgrade itself, nor to confirm the Hoodi testnet's fork schedule, and should not recklessly modify the current EIP-8037/EIP-8038 specifications (according to a single source); the Ethereum Foundation has viewed the audit reports from these two institutions as key inputs for assessing the risks of EIP-8037/EIP-8038, and as of November 10, the final decision on the upgrade and the testnet timeline remains undetermined (according to a single source). Key variables to keep a close watch on include: how the formal conclusions from the two audits, provided around November 16, will define the boundaries of "impact on deployed contracts," whether core developers will adjust Glamsterdam's advancement path based on it, and whether EIP-8037/EIP-8038 itself will need amendments at the specification level (according to a single source). For observers, this incident looks more like a governance sample of how Ethereum deals with legacy contract risks amid upgrades and how it balances speed and robustness, rather than just a trivial anecdote that can be casually described as "a technical upgrade interlude."

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