Two Rival Solutions Proposed to Save Older Ethereum Apps

Competing proposals aim to protect existing Ethereum applications

Two developers have introduced rival proposals to prevent Ethereum’s upcoming "Glamsterdam" upgrade from breaking existing smart contracts. A smart contract is a self-executing program that runs on a blockchain, which is a digital ledger for transactions.

The issue stems from planned changes to gas fees, which are the costs users pay to process actions on the network. Developers are concerned that rising costs for specific operations could cause older applications that cannot be updated to stop working, potentially locking away user funds.

How the Glamsterdam upgrade affects network costs

• The Glamsterdam upgrade includes two proposals, EIP-8037 and EIP-8038, that increase gas fees for data storage and contract creation.
• Under one proposal, the base cost for creating a contract would jump from 32,000 gas to 183,600 gas.
• Many older apps were built with the assumption that these costs would stay the same.
• If an app is designed to pay a fixed amount of gas for a task and that task suddenly costs more, the transaction will fail.

Two different approaches to fixing gas issues

Two developers filed different drafts on Sunday to solve the problem. Leo Glisic proposed EIP-8488, which would keep current gas prices for all existing apps on the network. Only new apps launched after the upgrade would be charged the higher rates.

Giulio Rebuffo proposed a different method that uses two separate gas meters for each transaction. One meter would track the action using the old rules to keep the app running, while a second meter would determine the actual fee the user must pay based on the new rules.

Confirmed details and testing delays

Security researchers have already raised alarms about these gas changes, leading to delays in testing the Glamsterdam upgrade. A rehearsal for the upgrade that was scheduled for October 26 on a practice network was postponed after experts flagged risks to existing contracts.

A security researcher known as pcaversaccio stated that the upgrade should not be released in its current form. Another developer, banteg, claimed that the changes could affect at least 200,000 existing contracts, including several well-known protocols.

Why these changes matter for Ethereum users

If the upgrade is implemented without a fix, apps that hold user money but cannot be modified might become unusable. This could prevent users from accessing their funds or interacting with older decentralized finance tools. Both proposed fixes are currently in the draft stage, and there is no confirmed date for when they might be adopted or when the Glamsterdam upgrade will officially go live.

Sources

• CoinDesk

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