Ethereum core developers have unveiled a strategic roadmap for 2026, planning two major network upgrades codenamed "Glamsterdam" and "Hegota." This initiative marks a deliberate shift toward a faster, more predictable biannual upgrade schedule, aiming to strengthen Ethereum's competitive position against high-throughput rival blockchains.
The first upgrade, "Glamsterdam," is slated for release in the first half of 2026, following closely behind the recent "Fusaka" hard fork. Its primary focus will be on immediate scalability and efficiency improvements. Key features include gas optimizations and the implementation of "Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation" (ePBS). This technical upgrade seeks to separate the roles of block builders and block proposers at the protocol level, which is designed to reduce censorship risks and further decentralize the network. Developers plan to finalize the full feature list for Glamsterdam immediately after the holiday break.
The second phase, "Hegota," is targeted for the latter half of 2026. The name combines the "Bogota" execution-layer update with the "Heze" consensus-layer update. According to Christine Kim, a former Vice President at Galaxy Digital who tracks protocol governance, scoping discussions for Hegota will begin on the January 8 All Core Developers call. These sessions will determine the fork's headline features, with a finalized scope expected by late February.
Parallel to these structural upgrades, the Ethereum Foundation is intensifying its focus on long-term security hardening. Researcher George Kadianakis confirmed the network's goal to achieve "128-bit provable security" by the end of 2026. This cryptographic standard is deemed critical for supporting institutional-grade financial applications. Kadianakis emphasized the non-negotiable nature of this security margin, especially for Layer 1 zkEVMs securing hundreds of billions of dollars, where a soundness issue could allow an attacker to forge proofs, mint tokens, rewrite state, or steal funds.
The Foundation has linked this security initiative to specific milestones, including a "soundcalc" integration in February and full alignment with the Glamsterdam hard fork in May. Collectively, these efforts are part of a broader strategy to lower technical entry barriers and match the intuitive simplicity of mainstream consumer applications, thereby removing friction that currently limits Ethereum's mass adoption.
