Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade retains a deposit rule that could credit staking funds to a builder under a specific processing order, after a proposed change was closed Oct. 19 for lack of client-team support.
Under the Gloas fork rule, deposits for a public key already registered to a builder are credited to that builder’s balance. Processing order therefore matters when builder and validator deposits use the same key.
An issue in Ethereum’s consensus-specifications repository describes two deposits using one public key that are pending at the fork: a valid builder deposit for a new key and a staking protocol’s validator deposit. The operator directs the builder deposit to an address they control, while the protocol funds the validator deposit with Ether (ETH). If the builder deposit is processed first, the protocol’s funds could instead be credited to the builder.
In that scenario, the operator could withdraw the funds, leaving the staking protocol to bear the loss, the issue says. The fork would also leave the key without a validator record; a later deposit would be needed to establish one. A protocol that waits for proof of the validator’s withdrawal credentials before sending more ETH would not have that proof until a validator exists. Any consequences for its accounting or recovery would vary with the protocol’s design. The issue describes a possible sequence, not a confirmed incident.
The proposed rule would have directed deposits carrying validator credentials to the validator deposit queue instead of adding them to a builder’s balance. A member of Ethereum’s consensus-specifications repository closed the pull request Oct. 19 after client teams failed to back a specification change. The related issue was separately closed with a “not planned” status. It points to checking for an earlier builder deposit as a safeguard staking protocols could use.
Client teams have not yet decided a mainnet activation date, according to the Ethereum Foundation’s announcement. The foundation said Glamsterdam activated on the Sepolia testnet Oct. 6 and is scheduled to activate on the Hoodi testnet Oct. 26 at 1:42:48 p.m. ET (17:42:48 UTC); EconoTimes previously covered the Hoodi testnet schedule.
