Ethereum Upgrade Ends Wallets’ 21,000-Gas Assumption

Since Ethereum’s 2015 mainnet launch, wallets have generally treated 21,000 gas as the standard limit for a basic ETH transfer, an assumption embedded in exchange withdrawal systems, RPC software and fee estimators. EIP-2780, included in the planned Glamsterdam upgrade, replaces that flat convention with resource-based components covering signature verification, account access, balance updates and permanent state growth. The change matters because software that hard-codes 21,000 may underestimate some transfers even when they appear simple to users.

Ethereum core developers finalized the latest gas-repricing parameters on Aug. 13, 2026, as the public Glamsterdam testnet Platåberget went live that week. Under EIP-2780, a self-transfer costs 12,000 gas and a zero-value transfer 15,000; sending ETH to an existing account still totals 21,000, while creating a new account adds 183,600 units of state gas. The specification urges wallet and blockchain-service developers to adopt simulation or dynamic gas estimation before deployment expands to further testnets, warning that transactions submitted with insufficient gas can be included but fail.