Ethereum canceled the activation of the Hoodi testnet for the Glamsterdam upgrade, scheduled for October 26, due to discovered security vulnerabilities. According to Chain Security, the testnet was suspended after identifying issues that affected 13 projects. "We have already found 13 real examples and are in responsible disclosure with the affected projects," stated Chain Security. The discovered vulnerability complicates the inability to retry canceled transactions and allows attackers to more easily compromise a smart contract using minimal network fees. The Glamsterdam upgrade was supposed to increase the block gas limit from 60 million to 200 million and enable parallel transaction processing, making Ethereum as high-performing as newer networks like Solana and Sui.
The Glamsterdam upgrade was successfully completed on the Sepolia testnet in early October, providing developers and validator operators the opportunity to assess compatibility. However, the frozen Hoodi testnet serves as the final stage before the upgrade's activation on the Ethereum mainnet. The discovered vulnerability was caught before it reached the mainnet, but Solana already achieves 85 times faster transaction finalization, widening the gap with Ethereum. After the Alpenglow upgrade, Solana is now 57 times faster than Ethereum and has 275 times greater capacity. Ethereum needs to increase the block gas limit to address the throughput issue. While transaction finalization takes Ethereum over 12 minutes, Solana does it in just 150-200 microseconds, which is 3,800 times faster. This has allowed Solana to attract 75 times more users, a gap Ethereum aims to close.
Despite the Glamsterdam testnet failure, Ethereum reportedly plans to accelerate finalization by 4 times, reducing the time from over 12 minutes to approximately 3 minutes, which will still be slower compared to Solana's 0.15 seconds. The proposal, known as Decoupled Consensus, aims to create a clearer path to post-quantum signatures and is expected in early 2028. Overall, Ethereum still lags behind Solana and needs to speed up its upgrades as the gap continues to widen.
This material is prepared solely for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation.