Curve Finance stated that Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade may enable complex DeFi transactions to more reliably secure block space. The protocol cited mainnet checks showing that a leveraged lending transaction used approximately 1.84 million gas, while a direct stablecoin swap used only about 125,000 gas.
- The mainnet check for Curve shows that the gas usage for leveraged lending is nearly 15 times that of direct stablecoin swaps.
- The team expects the added capacity to help borrowers, arbitrage traders, and liquidators complete transactions during periods of high demand.
- Ethereum developers have prepared a test with 200 million gas, but have not committed to adopting this limit on mainnet.
- Curve warns that the revised status fees may increase the gas requirements for certain transactions.
Curve Finance is a decentralized finance protocol and the project behind the crvUSD stablecoin. The team states that Glamsterdam's value should be measured by its performance during periods of network congestion, not just by block gas limits.
Curve, in a comment provided to crypto.news, stated that the actual metrics for determining whether Ethereum’s increased capacity has improved accessibility are the time it takes for transactions to be included in blocks and the fees users actually pay during periods of demand spikes. The team also believes that easier verification is another condition for successful scaling.
The Ethereum Glamsterdam upgrade may help facilitate complex DeFi transactions.
According to mainnet checks on Curve, a leveraged borrowing transaction consumes approximately 1.84 million gas, while a direct stablecoin swap uses about 125,000 gas. Based on these figures, the borrowing operation consumes roughly 14.7 times more gas than the latter.
For transactions that involve both borrowing and purchasing collateral, the team noted that congestion could affect multiple stages of the same operation. Therefore, more predictable access to block space is especially beneficial for users executing complex transactions during periods of increased network activity.
The Curve team believes that lower execution costs may also make smaller arbitrage trades worthwhile. The team expects that longer swap paths could become more economical, improving the prices offered by their pools and making it easier to open or close positions.
The team stated that such an upgrade would be welcome as long as Ethereum can provide additional capacity without increasing validation difficulty. Their comments did not claim that every user operation would become cheaper, but rather pointed out that the upgrade would change how state operations are priced.
In the October 6 report on the 200 million Gas test, it was previously reported that Sepolia was preparing to increase the block Gas limit from approximately 60 million. The report explained that this test configuration would not automatically become the Gas limit on Ethereum mainnet.
According to Prysm's October 5 release notes, version 7.2.1 added the Sepolia schedule, causing validators to default to 200 million gas after the fork. The previous version supported this upgrade but retained the 60 million gas setting unless operators changed the configuration.
Settlement profits depend on whether the trade is completed promptly.
During periods of high market volatility, Curve stated that liquidators, oracle updates, and borrowers will all compete for block space. Additional capacity may help their transactions go through smoothly, though the team also cautioned that larger blocks would still face demand pressure.
For Curve’s lending system, the expected returns are primarily reflected in its liquidation mechanism, LLAMMA. The team states that cheaper and faster arbitrage helps LLAMMA more closely track market prices as collateral moves through the liquidation range.
By reducing latency in this process, the protocol upgrade is expected to limit losses caused by price fluctuations before a trade is completed. Curve also links reliable liquidations to the stability of crvUSD.
The team particularly emphasizes performance during periods of volatility, as users need to act on their positions rather than wait for network congestion to ease.
We believe the most important focus should be on performance under real-world load.
From Curve’s perspective, if transactions remain stuck during peak times, the practical benefits of a higher gas limit will be limited. The team noted that key metrics are the speed at which transactions enter blocks and the fees users pay when competition for block space intensifies.
Gas repricing may require contract and wallet adjustments.
In addition to the expected execution benefits, Curve warned that Glamsterdam will reprice state operations, meaning some operations will require more Gas.
Ethereum developers raised concerns in a report on August 26 regarding smart contract compatibility risks. According to the warning cited from the Ethereum Foundation, most contracts are unaffected by transaction replay, and many cases marked as failures can be resolved by providing a higher gas limit.
The foundation noted that fixed gas limits, hardcoded call limits, and gas-sensitive contract logic are risk factors. This warning also extends to wallets, infrastructure providers, and gas estimation tools that rely on caching assumptions.
Under the proposed changes described in this report, EIP-8037 will alter the cost of creating state, including accounts and contract storage; EIP-8038 will revise the fees for accessing existing state. Developers are urged to test their applications before the mainnet activation.
Regarding validation, Curve states that Ethereum should retain the ability to validate the ledger without permission. The team warns that increasing capacity to the point where independent validation becomes impractical would undermine this principle.
Public test for follow capacity checks and builder warnings
In a September 18 report on Glamsterdam testnet builder risks, Ethereum developers warned that free test ETH could enable malicious builders to win block auctions and withhold transaction payloads.
Developers have characterized this scenario as a public testnet availability issue, rather than a method of stealing mainnet ETH. The report states that Devnet-11 employed 84,000 validators across multiple clients, but its controlled exercise did not include deliberate attacks.
For U.S. investors tracking Ethereum through listed funds, reports on Ethereum ETF redemptions in the U.S. on September 19 indicated, according to Farside data, a net outflow of approximately $140.6 million between September 14 and 18. The report noted that Ethereum was the weakest-performing category among the four types of covered crypto ETFs.
According to the October 6 upgrade report, the Ethereum Foundation has not yet set an activation date for HooD or the mainnet and will announce it separately once the client teams reach consensus.