Crypto: Ethereum Prepares Two Solutions to Protect Its Smart Contracts

Ethereum could disrupt up to 200,000 smart contracts with its upcoming Glamsterdam update. Developer banteg warns of the risks associated with the new gas calculation rules, which could prevent some existing contracts from functioning properly. Two competing proposals were submitted on November 8 to avoid these issues. The Ethereum Foundation has already postponed a planned test on Hoodi.

In Brief

• About 200,000 smart contracts are on a list of contracts potentially affected by Glamsterdam.
• Two developers propose different solutions to preserve their functionality.
• The Ethereum Foundation postpones tests on Hoodi until the identified issues are resolved.

Ethereum Identifies a Risk for 200,000 Smart Contracts

The alert is growing. On October 26, Ethereum had already postponed a Glamsterdam test after discovering risks on 13 contracts. Two weeks later, developer banteg mentions a list of approximately 200,000 potentially affected contracts. This figure comes from a tool analyzing the effects of the new gas pricing. It does not mean that 200,000 contracts will necessarily fail.

Banteg even estimates that the method used could miss other vulnerable contracts. The issue concerns two proposals integrated into Glamsterdam: EIP-8037 and EIP-8038. The first modifies the cost of creating permanent data on Ethereum. The second increases certain fees related to their consultation and modification.

The change is significant. With EIP-8037, the base cost of creating a smart contract would rise from 32,000 to 183,600 gas units, before additional fees related to the code and its execution. Gas measures the computing resources needed for operations performed on Ethereum. Some older smart contracts were programmed with fixed limits. When they call another contract, they allocate a precise amount of gas to it.

If this amount becomes insufficient after Glamsterdam, the operation may fail. The issue particularly affects immutable contracts, whose code cannot be modified after deployment. Some DeFi protocols could encounter difficulties during their crypto transactions. Funds could also become temporarily inaccessible in certain scenarios. However, no massive failures of this type have been observed on the main network.

Two Developers Propose Competing Solutions

In response to concerns, Leo Glisic and Giulio Rebuffo presented two different approaches on November 8. The first, called EIP-8488, seeks to preserve the old rules for contracts already deployed.

Leo Glisic proposes creating two sets of instructions. Existing contracts would continue to operate under the current gas costs. New contracts would use instructions adapted to the rates introduced by EIP-8037 and EIP-8038.

The goal is to avoid altering the execution conditions of historical applications. Giulio Rebuffo advocates for another method. His proposal includes two gas counters for each crypto transaction. The first would track execution according to the old rules, while the second would calculate the fees actually charged according to the new rates.

Users would thus pay the new costs, but the old contracts would maintain accounting compatible with their initial operation. This solution would require a more significant adaptation of Ethereum software.

Rebuffo acknowledges that no implementation in the execution clients or any consensus testing has yet been carried out. Both proposals remain in draft form. No decision has been made regarding their integration into Glamsterdam.

The project comes after several months of preparation. Ethereum had already activated Glamsterdam on the Sepolia test network on October 6. The next transition was supposed to take place on Hoodi, but security researchers discovered new incompatibilities.

Glamsterdam Will Wait for Problem Resolution

The Ethereum Foundation officially announced its decision on November 6. Developers will not proceed with the deployment on Hoodi until the risks associated with the new gas rules have been resolved.

Cybersecurity companies ChainSecurity and Dedaub are participating in the verifications. The Foundation has also published a list of eight technical assumptions on which certain contracts rely and which could become invalid with Glamsterdam.

It asks developers and auditors to review their applications. Affected projects can send their feedback directly to the Ethereum teams. The next private test had been considered between November 16 and 20 at the earliest. However, this timeline had been discussed before the submission of the two new proposals.

No new definitive date has been announced. The deployment on the main network will depend on the corrections made and the results of the upcoming tests. Glamsterdam still pursues an important goal: to increase Ethereum's capacity while managing the growth of its database.

The update is expected to facilitate parallel processing of transactions and improve the organization of block production. Work on Hegotá, the next update, continues concurrently.

For crypto developers, the immediate priority concerns the compatibility of already deployed applications. Ethereum is also preparing to increase its gas limit from 60 to 200 million per block. This change could enhance the network's capacity, but it must not compromise contracts that already secure funds. The next developer meetings will need to decide between the proposed solutions before resuming tests.