Curve Finance indicates that the Glamsterdam upgrade of Ethereum may enable more complex DeFi transactions to obtain block space more reliably. The protocol cites mainnet checks stating that a leveraged loan used approximately 1.84 million Gas, while direct stablecoin exchanges only used about 125,000 Gas.

• The mainnet check of Curve shows that the usage of leveraged lending, Gas, is nearly 15 times that of direct stablecoin exchanges.
• The team expects that the additional capacity will help borrowers, arbitrage traders, and clearinghouses complete transactions during peak demand periods.
• Ethereum developers have prepared a test with a limit of 200 million Gas, but they have not committed to adopting this limit on the mainnet.
• Curve warns that the revised status-based fees may increase the Gas requirements for certain transactions.

Curve Finance is a decentralized finance protocol and also the underlying project behind the crvUSD stablecoin. The team states that the value of Glamsterdam should be measured by its performance during congestion in transactions, rather than just by the upper limit on block Gas.

Curve stated in comments provided to crypto.news that the time when a transaction is included in a block, as well as the actual fees paid by users during periods of surge in demand, are the true criteria for judging whether Ethereum's increased capacity improves accessibility. The team also believes that ease of verification is one of the conditions for a successful expansion.

Ethereum Glamsterdam Upgrade or Assistance with Complex DeFi Transactions

According to the mainnet checks of Curve, a leveraged lending transaction consumes approximately 1.84 million Gas, while the direct exchange for stablecoins is about 125,000 Gas. Based on these figures, the Gas consumed in this lending operation is about 14.7 times that of the latter.

For transactions that involve both lending and collateral purchases, the team indicates that congestion may affect multiple stages of the same operation. Therefore, during times of increased network activity, having more predictable access to block space is particularly useful for users executing complex transactions.

Curve The team believes that cheaper execution could also make smaller arbitrage transactions more worthwhile. They anticipate that longer conversion paths may become more economical, thereby improving the prices offered by their pool and making it easier to open or close positions.

The team stated that as long as Ethereum can provide additional capacity without increasing the verification difficulty, such scaling is welcome. Their comment did not claim that every user operation would become cheaper, but rather pointed out that the upgrade would change the way state operations are charged.

In the report on October 6th regarding the testing of 200 million Gas, earlier reports mentioned that Sepolia was preparing to increase the upper limit from about 60 million on block Gas. The report explained that this test setting would not automatically become the upper limit of the Ethereum mainnet.

According to the release note on Prysm dated October 5th, version 7.2.1 has incorporated the Sepolia schedule. Therefore, after the fork, verifiers will default to using 200 million Gas. The previous version supported this upgrade, but unless the operators change the configuration, the setting of 60 million will still be retained.

The settlement profit depends on whether the transaction is completed in a timely manner.

During periods of severe market volatility, Curve indicates that liquidators, predicators, and borrowers will all compete for block space. Additional capacity may help their transactions go through smoothly, but the team also reminds that larger blocks will still face demand pressure.

For the lending system of Curve, the expected returns are mainly reflected in its settlement mechanism LLAMMA. The team states that cheaper and faster arbitrage helps LLAMMA to more closely track market prices when collateral passes through the settlement period.

By reducing the latency in this process, the protocol is expected to limit losses that may arise from price changes before a transaction is completed. Curve also links reliable settlement with the stability of crvUSD.

The team particularly emphasizes performance during periods of volatility, as users need to take action on their positions rather than waiting for network congestion to ease.

"What we think is most important to focus on is the performance under real load."

In Curve, it seems that if transactions still get stuck during peak hours, then the actual benefits of higher Gas limits will be limited. The team stated that the relevant indicators are the speed at which transactions are added to blocks, as well as the fees that users pay when the competition for block space intensifies.

Gas Repricing may require adjustments to contracts and wallets.

In addition to the expected execution benefits, Curve also warns that Glamsterdam will reprice status operations, which means that some operations will require more Gas.

Ethereum developers raised concerns regarding smart contract compatibility risks in a report on August 26th. According to the warning from the Ethereum Foundation cited in the report, most contracts are not affected by transaction replay, and many of the cases marked as failures can be resolved by setting a higher Gas limit.

The foundation pointed out that fixing the Gas amount, hard-coding call limits, and contract logic that is sensitive to Gas are all risk factors. This warning also applies to wallets that rely on cache assumptions, infrastructure providers, and Gas estimation tools.

Under the proposed changes described in this report, EIP-8037 will alter the costs associated with creating states, including account and contract storage; EIP-8038 will revise the fees for accessing existing states. Developers are encouraged to test their applications before the mainnet is activated.

In terms of verification, Curve states that Ethereum should retain the ability to maintain a verified ledger without the need for permission. The team warns that if additional capacity makes independent verification impractical, then such scaling will undermine this principle.

Public testing is conducted along with capacity checks and builder warnings.

In a report on September 18 regarding the risks associated with the builders of the Glamsterdam testnet, Ethereum developers warned that free test Ethereum could allow malicious builders to win block auctions and retain transaction payloads.

Developers discussed this scenario as an issue with the availability of the public test network, rather than a method to steal from the mainnet ETH. Reports indicate that Devnet-11 utilized 84,000 validators on multiple clients, but its controlled experiments did not involve deliberate attacks.

For American investors who track Ether through listed funds, reports on the redemption of US Ether on September 19 indicated that, according to Farside data, there was a net outflow of approximately $140.6 million from September 14 to 18. The report stated that Ether was the weakest among the four types of cryptocurrencies covered.

According to the upgrade report on October 6th, the Ethereum Foundation has not yet set a date for the activation of Hoodi or the mainnet, and stated that they will announce it separately after reaching an agreement with the client team.