Ethereum Glamsterdam Upgrade Faces Security Pushback

Two Rival Fixes for Contracts That Cannot Be Updated

Glamsterdam bundles EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, which raise the gas cost of creating and touching stored data. Under the new rules, the base charge to create a contract jumps to 183,600 gas from 32,000. Many older apps holding user funds cannot be updated, so they would break under the higher costs.

Two developers filed rival drafts on November 8 to protect those legacy contracts:

• Leo Glisic’s EIP-8488 keeps the old gas schedule for existing contracts while new contracts run under V2 opcodes.
• Giulio Rebuffo’s design runs two gas meters, billing at the new prices but executing under the old rules. It has no implementation or tests yet.

Neither draft has a target date. Security researcher pcaversaccio was blunt: Glamsterdam should not be shipped in its current form, period. Developer banteg has already catalogued about 200,000 affected contracts, including major protocols, though he suspects the real number is higher.

Ether Slides as the Test Date Slips

The schedule is slipping with it. A testnet rehearsal planned for October 26 was postponed after the security alarms surfaced, and the next private test is not expected before November 16 to 20. A clean test would have signaled developer confidence and could have sparked a recovery in the price.

Instead, ether traded near $2,100 on Monday, down about 8% on the week. It sits below both its 50-day moving average ($2,370) and its 200-day average ($2,310), and when price trades under both lines, those levels tend to cap any bounce. Momentum agrees: the RSI reads about 32, close to the 30 level that marks oversold conditions, and the MACD is below its signal line. The slide has been orderly, with lower highs stacking through November and every rally into the moving-average zone stalling. Sellers have paused on flat sessions, but nothing on the chart shows buyers taking control.

The $1,850 Floor Is the Level to Watch

The first barrier on the upside sits near $2,280, just under the 200-day line. A close above it would hint that sellers are tiring. Clearing the 50-day average would mark a genuine recovery and break the pattern of lower highs.

Below the current price, support thins out. The only mapped floor sits near $1,850, more than 10% away, which gives bulls some cushion. If it breaks, the data shows no clear support beneath it, so a drop could run well past it before buyers find footing.

Hashlytics Take

The chart is describing a developer-process problem, not a market one. Ether’s weakness is the backdrop, but the price will not turn until the two EIP drafts converge, and neither has a date. Rebuffo’s dual-meter approach has no implementation or tests, which leaves Glisic’s cleaner split between old and new contracts as the only draft that can realistically be tested on the current timeline. Banteg’s count of about 200,000 affected contracts should be read as a floor, since he suspects the real figure is higher. A repricing meant to make storage costlier is treating contracts that nobody can patch as collateral damage, and that is a bigger reputational risk for Ethereum than another slipped test date. A quick agreement could catch short sellers off guard and force a sharp bounce as they cover. Another delay points toward $1,850. The question now is whether the Ethereum community can move fast enough to stop Glamsterdam from becoming a liability rather than an upgrade.