Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade brings parallel execution and ePBS in H1 2026. Hegota follows with Verkle Trees. Full technical breakdown inside.
Kai Nakamoto
Emerging Tech Analyst
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Ethereum is about to ship its most ambitious upgrade cycle since The Merge. The Glamsterdam upgrade and Hegota hard fork will transform how the network processes transactions, manages state, and scales for institutional demand. Here is what developers and investors need to know about Ethereum's 2026 roadmap.
After Pectra launched on May 7, 2025, delivering account abstraction (EIP-7702) and doubling blob throughput, Ethereum's core developers adopted a new strategy: ship upgrades twice per year instead of bundling everything into massive annual releases.
The result is two distinct hard forks planned for 2026. Glamsterdam targets the first half of the year with execution-layer improvements. Hegota follows in late 2026 with a fundamental redesign of how Ethereum stores data.
This biannual cadence signals a shift in Ethereum's development philosophy: faster iteration, smaller scope per upgrade, and reduced coordination overhead.
Glamsterdam, expected in the first half of 2026, tackles Ethereum's biggest bottleneck: sequential transaction processing. Today, every transaction executes one after another. Glamsterdam changes that with two flagship features.
Block-Level Access Lists enable what developers call "perfect" parallel block processing. Instead of a single-lane highway, Ethereum becomes a multi-lane system where transactions that touch different parts of the state can execute simultaneously.
BALs work by declaring upfront which storage slots a transaction will read or write. Transactions with non-overlapping access lists run in parallel. Development testnets for BALs are already running.
EIP-7732 brings proposer-builder separation directly into the protocol. Currently, Ethereum relies on external relays like MEV-Boost to separate the roles of block proposing and block building. This creates centralization risks and trust dependencies.
With ePBS, the protocol itself handles this separation. Proposers select block builders through an on-chain auction mechanism, removing reliance on third-party infrastructure. This reduces MEV extraction risks and strengthens decentralization.
Glamsterdam also targets a significant gas limit increase. The current limit sits at roughly 60 million. The plan is to raise it to 100 million in the first phase, with potential to reach 200 million after ePBS stabilizes. A 3.3x gas limit increase translates directly to higher throughput per block.
Combined with parallel execution, these changes target throughput approaching 10,000 TPS by end of 2026, a dramatic leap from the current baseline.
Named after the Devcon venue Bogota and the star Heze, Hegota tackles a problem that has plagued Ethereum for years: state bloat.
Ethereum currently uses Merkle Patricia Tries to store its state. These data structures require large proofs: to verify a single piece of data, you need a significant chunk of the entire tree. As Ethereum's state grows (now hundreds of gigabytes), this becomes increasingly expensive.
Verkle Trees replace Merkle Tries with a structure that produces much smaller proofs. A Verkle proof is roughly 150 bytes compared to several kilobytes for a Merkle proof. This difference matters because it enables something transformative: stateless clients.
With Verkle Trees, a node can verify transactions without storing the entire Ethereum state. It only needs the block header and the Verkle proofs included with each transaction. This dramatically reduces hardware requirements for running a node.
The implications for decentralization are significant. Lower barriers to node operation mean more participants can validate the network. This is Ethereum's answer to the criticism that full nodes require increasingly powerful hardware.
Hegota also explores state expiry mechanisms. Old state that hasn't been accessed in a defined period would be moved to a more efficient cold storage layer. Active state stays in the hot layer for fast access. This prevents the state from growing indefinitely while preserving all historical data.
These two upgrades form a coherent scaling strategy:
| Feature | Glamsterdam (H1 2026) | Hegota (H2 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Execution speed | State management |
| Key tech | BALs, ePBS | Verkle Trees |
| Gas limit | 60M to 100-200M | Maintained |
| Node impact | Higher throughput | Lower storage needs |
| Decentralization | ePBS removes relay trust | Stateless clients |
Glamsterdam increases how many transactions Ethereum can process per second. Hegota ensures the network can sustain this higher throughput without ballooning hardware requirements. One without the other would create imbalances: more throughput without better state management would accelerate state bloat.
Ethereum's Layer 2 ecosystem, which already handles the majority of user-facing transactions, benefits directly from both upgrades.
Higher gas limits and parallel execution on L1 mean rollups can post more data to Ethereum at lower cost. This complements the blob scaling from Pectra (which raised the blob ceiling to 9) and the upcoming PeerDAS upgrade targeting up to 48 blobs.
For rollup operators like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base, cheaper L1 settlement means lower fees for end users. For the broader ecosystem, see our analysis of Layer 2 consolidation trends.
Ethereum is not upgrading in a vacuum. Solana's Alpenglow protocol targets 100-150ms block finality. Avalanche, Sui, and Aptos all offer sub-second confirmation times today.
But Ethereum's approach differs fundamentally. Rather than optimizing for raw speed, it prioritizes:
For a detailed comparison of how L1 blockchains stack up, see our Layer 1 Wars 2026 analysis. For Ethereum's institutional positioning, read our Year of Ethereum 2026 deep dive.
Several uncertainties remain:
Ethereum's 2026 roadmap represents its most coordinated scaling push since the transition to proof of stake. Glamsterdam addresses immediate throughput limitations with parallel execution and ePBS. Hegota tackles the longer-term sustainability challenge with Verkle Trees and state management.
For investors, the key signal is development velocity. Ethereum's shift to biannual hard forks shows the core team can ship faster without sacrificing the deliberate approach that differentiates it from competitors. With a STRICT score of 90 and $74.5 billion in TVL, Ethereum enters this upgrade cycle from a position of strength.
The bear market has compressed valuations, but the technology pipeline tells a different story. Watch for Glamsterdam testnet milestones in Q1-Q2 2026 as the first concrete signal of execution.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk. Always conduct your own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.
