Ethereum has launched the Platåberget public testnet to verify its next upgrade, dubbed Glamsterdam.

On Aug. 18, blockchain media outlet U.Today reported that the testnet is an initial testing venue for Glamsterdam, focusing on checking how Ethereum operates after the upgrade in a public environment.

The Ethereum Foundation unveiled Platåberget in a blog post on Aug. 17 and introduced it as an "initial testing space" for Glamsterdam. The testnet fork is scheduled for Aug. 20. Key items under review are ePBS, gas repricing, Block-Level Access Lists (BALs) and a new builder API flow.

Platåberget is a short-lived test network, but it differs in nature from existing short-term devnets. The Ethereum Foundation said the network will be a stable testing space maintained for several months. The community will be able to experiment in advance with the Ethereum environment after Glamsterdam is applied and identify issues before they are reflected in the long-term testnets Sepolia and Hoodi.

The validator participation structure is also designed to be open. Platåberget is relatively small, but it uses a validator structure that allows anyone to join publicly. Users can register new validators to directly test validator and builder deposit workflows.

There are also significant changes on the execution layer. Glamsterdam adds Block-Level Access Lists. The feature is an enforced access list that records state locations accessed at the block level and changes after transactions. The data are stored separately from the block body and exchanged among execution-layer peers via eth/71.

The gas fee system will also be adjusted. The gas repricing is a package of cost changes targeting a lower bound of about 200 million gas. Tools that keep the maximum gas limit as a fixed value could be affected, and large contracts and initcode will also be allowed. The maximum deployable contract size will increase to 64 KiB from 24 KiB, and the maximum initcode size will expand to 128 KiB from 48 KiB. It also includes consensus data structures designed for future compatibility.

These changes show that Glamsterdam is an upgrade that overhauls both the block production structure and the overall execution environment. As a result, what issues emerge on Platåberget from ePBS, builder flows and changes to the gas system are expected to be key checkpoints for later testing on Sepolia and Hoodi, and ultimately before deployment on the main network.

The Platåberget public testnet is now live, marking the next stage of testing for Glamsterdam. The fork is scheduled for August 20, with ePBS, gas repricings, Block-Level Access Lists (BALs), and the new builder API flow among the key areas being tested. pic.twitter.com/dk47bBK7vD