Ethereum’s core development teams published an updated set of protocol priorities for 2026, setting the next major network upgrade, Glamsterdam, for the first half of 2026, followed by Hegotá later in the year.
Two-Upgrade Schedule For 2026
The roadmap keeps Ethereum on a twice-yearly cadence. Glamsterdam is positioned as the next bundled hard fork, while Hegotá is slated as the following release, with feature proposals continuing into early 2026.
L1 And Rollup Scaling
Developers said the 2026 plan continues to push for higher L1 execution capacity, including a target to raise the gas limit to 100 million or more. They will also work on enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS) and further blob scaling to support rollups and data availability. The scaling track also highlights deeper use of zero-knowledge (ZK) tooling and longer-term state/storage optimization to reduce bottlenecks as activity grows.
Cross-L2 Usability
The developers focus on making Ethereum easier to use by providing native account abstraction / smart-wallet functionality, and improving interoperability across L2 networks, aiming to reduce friction as users move between rollups and apps. The UX track also includes preparation for post-quantum security, reflecting ongoing work to make wallet authentication more resilient against future cryptographic threats.
Network Hardening
The upcoming update emphasizes preserving Ethereum’s core properties as scaling changes ship, including security, censorship resistance, and stronger testing/reliability practices around upgrades and client behavior.
