Source report published by TechFlow on November 6, 2026, at 22:09:43 (UTC+08:00).
Ethereum core developers agreed to postpone the Hoodi testnet upgrade while teams investigate compatibility risks associated with two gas-repricing proposals planned for Glamsterdam, according to TechFlow.
The report says developers will not proceed with the Hoodi hard fork until they better understand which contracts could be affected and can provide compatibility guidance. This is a pause in the testnet rollout—not evidence that the proposals have been activated.
What EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 aim to change
TechFlow describes EIP-8037 and EIP-8038 as proposals to reprice state-related operations, separating the charging mechanisms for state creation and state access and adjusting gas weights for particular opcodes.
The stated problem is that Ethereum’s growing historical state makes a fixed charging model a poor reflection of the hardware costs of creating and repeatedly accessing state. The proposed changes aim to constrain state growth, but they could also invalidate assumptions embedded in existing applications.
Where existing assumptions can break
According to TechFlow’s account of ChainSecurity’s analysis, many deployed contracts and off-chain infrastructure components rely on static gas assumptions. Changes to opcode costs could therefore interrupt business logic even where the application code itself remains unchanged.
The report highlights several compatibility risks:
- Hard-coded gas limits: Contracts may cap the gas forwarded to another contract to restrict execution or help guard against reentrancy. Higher execution costs could make previously successful calls run out of gas and revert.
- Exception-handling logic: Fault-tolerant workflows may behave differently when an outer caller can no longer accurately anticipate the cost of an inner call.
- Fixed-ratio gas forwarding: Proxy contracts that forward a predetermined share of remaining gas could take different execution paths under the revised pricing, potentially leaving funds locked in an incomplete state-machine branch.
The Ethereum Foundation’s published investigation repository, rather than ChainSecurity’s analysis, is the source TechFlow credits with detailing the eight affected invariants—assumptions that existing systems expect to remain true—and providing examples of problematic code.
Why the Hoodi rollout was paused
TechFlow reports that developers reached agreement during an All Core Developers meeting to hold off on the Hoodi hard fork pending a clearer assessment of affected contracts and guidance on compatibility.
The concern is broader than individual failed calls. The report identifies multisignature wallets, bridges and decentralized lending protocols as areas where compatibility failures could cascade. These are reported risks, not documented failures caused by an activated upgrade.
Investigation extends beyond on-chain code
The Ethereum Foundation has issued a call for ecosystem self-checks and is working with multiple organizations on code audits, according to the report.
TechFlow attributes to Ethereum researcher Marius van der Wijden an acknowledgment that central auditing efforts cannot cover every dependency. Relevant assumptions may sit not only in public on-chain bytecode, but also in proprietary routing systems, settlement scripts and liquidation bots.
The Foundation’s investigation repository includes technical explanations of the eight invariants, problematic code samples and prompt templates for audit-assistance tools and code scanners. These resources are intended to help contract teams, auditors and infrastructure operators check their own systems.
At the time of the November 6 report, core developers and security organizations planned to review the first collected self-check results at the following week’s ACD meeting, then reassess Hoodi’s activation conditions and possible adjustments. The report does not establish a revised activation date.