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Developers have outlined upgrades for Ethereum planned for 2026, aiming to improve execution speed, enhance censorship resistance, and boost node performance at scale. This roadmap follows two upgrades in 2025: Pectra in May and Fusaka in December, which were designed to expand data capacity for layer-2 networks.
The 2026 plan revolves around the mid-year Glamsterdam fork and the later-year Heze-Bogota fork. Meanwhile, Ethereum Foundation researchers have cautioned that growing “state bloat” could significantly increase storage requirements and strain full-node performance.
The Glamsterdam fork aims to scale Ethereum’s base layer by changing client-side transaction processing within each block. A leading proposal, Block Access Lists (EIP-7928), supports parallel transaction execution across multiple CPU cores.
Under the design, block producers provide structured data describing transaction state access and state changes. This allows clients to process non-conflicting transactions concurrently, reducing the time spent on sequential execution.
Glamsterdam also aligns with an increase in the Ethereum gas limit. Developers have discussed raising the gas limit from about 60 million to 200 million. A higher limit allows more computation per block, easing congestion.
The upgrade path includes changes around proposer and builder roles in block production. Developers have discussed integrating proposer-builder separation into the consensus layer to reduce reliance on external relay infrastructure. Researchers expect some validators to adopt more zero-knowledge proof verification workflows, with early estimates near 10%.
The Heze-Bogota fork aims to improve transaction inclusion and reduce the chance that infrastructure providers can block transactions. As Ethereum usage expands, developers have positioned the upgrade around privacy, censorship resistance, and decentralization.
A planned mechanism, Fork-Choice Inclusion Lists, would allow multiple validators to require the inclusion of specific transactions in blocks. The approach aims to ensure inclusion even when a portion of validators remains honest, thereby strengthening resistance to coordinated exclusion.
Heze-Bogota supports Ethereum’s move toward a predictable upgrade cadence. Ethereum developers have adopted a semiannual hard-fork schedule, and the 2026 sequence would extend that rhythm after Fusaka.
Ethereum Foundation researchers have said the growing on-chain state could strain node operators. The Ethereum state holds balances, contract storage, and application code, and it grows as applications and users add data.
Researchers have warned that rising state sizes could push full node operation toward a smaller set of sophisticated operators. Consequently, costs and performance constraints could affect decentralization and censorship resistance.
The Ethereum Foundation has presented three ways to limit the impact of state growth on node operators. The first option is state expiry. This moves inactive data out of the active set, while allowing users to recover it later by providing the appropriate proofs.
Another approach is state archiving. This separates frequently used “hot” data from older “cold” historical records, helping nodes maintain steady performance even as the total state expands. The third option is partial statelessness. It allows nodes to store only parts of the state. Through this setup, wallets and light clients can cache what they need for specific actions.
Developers plan to test these ideas while Ethereum continues to scale. The work also aligns with 2026 priorities, including improving execution efficiency, raising gas limits, and tightening transaction inclusion rules to strengthen the network.
Also Read: Ethereum News Today: ETH Rolls Out Fusaka Upgrade with 16.78M Gas Cap to Boost Scalability
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