London, UK – [Date of Publication] – The Ethereum ecosystem is poised for another transformative year, following a highly productive 2025 that saw the successful deployment of two major network upgrades, Pectra and Fusaka. Building on this momentum, the core development team behind "Protocol," Ethereum’s strategic initiative for coordinating development, has announced a significant evolution in its organizational structure for 2026. This refined approach consolidates efforts into three pivotal tracks: Scale, Improve UX, and Harden the L1, signaling a mature and holistic strategy to solidify Ethereum’s foundation while aggressively pursuing mass adoption.
Originally introduced in June 2025 with initiatives focused on "Scale L1," "Scale Blobs," and "Improve UX," Protocol’s inaugural year delivered critical advancements. The Pectra upgrade in May and the Fusaka upgrade in December significantly bolstered the network’s capacity and laid groundwork for future enhancements. The community also witnessed a doubling of the mainnet gas limit and crucial steps towards improved user experience and network resilience.
However, as the network matures and the challenges become more interconnected, the Protocol team recognized the need for a more integrated approach. The 2026 restructuring is designed to foster greater synergy among development teams, streamline complex interdependencies, and provide a clearer, more impactful direction for Ethereum’s evolution. The overarching goal remains steadfast: to create a more scalable, user-friendly, and robust blockchain for a global, decentralized future.
A Year of Unprecedented Progress: Key Achievements in 2025
The year 2025 marked a period of intense innovation and execution for Ethereum’s core protocol, characterized by the successful deployment of two major network upgrades and significant advancements across various fronts. These achievements have not only enhanced the network’s immediate capabilities but have also set the stage for its long-term vision.
Pectra: Unleashing Account Abstraction and Staking Flexibility (May 2025)
The Pectra upgrade, deployed in May 2025, represented a monumental step forward, particularly in the realm of user experience and validator flexibility. Its flagship feature, EIP-7702, introduced a groundbreaking capability for Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) to temporarily execute smart contract code. This innovation unlocked a host of possibilities previously reserved for smart contract wallets, including:
- Transaction Batching: Users can now bundle multiple operations into a single transaction, reducing gas costs and simplifying complex interactions. Imagine approving a token, swapping it, and then staking the proceeds all in one go.
- Gas Sponsorship: Third parties can now pay for users’ transaction fees, a crucial feature for onboarding new users who might be unfamiliar with crypto economics or lack initial ETH for gas. This removes a significant barrier to entry for mainstream adoption.
- Social Recovery: EIP-7702 enables more sophisticated account recovery mechanisms, allowing users to regain access to their funds through a network of trusted contacts, significantly enhancing security and mitigating the risk of lost seed phrases.
Beyond account abstraction, Pectra also delivered crucial scaling and staking improvements:
- Doubled Blob Throughput (EIP-7691): This upgrade significantly increased the data capacity available for blobs, directly benefiting Layer 2 (L2) rollups by providing more space for transaction data, leading to lower L2 transaction costs and increased throughput.
- Increased Max Effective Validator Balance to 2,048 ETH (EIP-7251): This adjustment provided greater flexibility for stakers, particularly institutional participants or large individual validators, by allowing them to consolidate more ETH under a single validator, simplifying operations and potentially improving capital efficiency.
- Dramatically Shortened Validator Onboarding Times (EIP-6110): Reducing the time it takes for new validators to join the active set improved the network’s ability to scale its validator count, enhancing decentralization and overall security.
Fusaka: Ushering in Data Availability Sampling with PeerDAS (December 2025)
The second major upgrade of 2025, Fusaka, launched in December, marked a pivotal moment for Ethereum’s data availability layer. Its core component, EIP-7594 (PeerDAS), fundamentally changed how validators handle blob data. Instead of requiring all validators to download full blob data, PeerDAS introduced data availability sampling. This innovation allows validators to sample small portions of blob data to verify its availability, rather than downloading the entire dataset.
The implications of PeerDAS are profound:
- Significantly Reduced Bandwidth Requirements: By eliminating the need for full data downloads, PeerDAS drastically lowers the hardware and bandwidth burden on validators, promoting greater participation and decentralization.
- 8x Increase in Theoretical Blob Capacity: The efficiency gained from data sampling unlocks the potential for an exponential increase in blob capacity, directly translating to massively lower transaction costs and higher throughput for L2s. This is a critical step towards Ethereum’s vision of becoming a global data availability layer for a myriad of rollups.
- Blob Parameter Only (BPO) Forks: Alongside Fusaka, two BPO forks were shipped, initiating the gradual increase from 6 blobs per block towards much higher targets, strategically scaling blob availability in a controlled manner.
Complementary Advancements:
Between these two landmark upgrades, the Ethereum community also pushed forward several other vital improvements:
- Mainnet Gas Limit Increase (30M to 60M): This community-driven initiative, the first significant increase since 2021, effectively doubled the computational capacity of each block, providing more space for transactions on the L1 and alleviating congestion.
- History Expiry: This crucial maintenance task removed pre-Merge historical data from full nodes, saving hundreds of gigabytes of disk space. This helps manage the growing blockchain size, making it easier and cheaper to run a full node, thereby supporting decentralization.
- User Experience Enhancements:
- The Open Intents Framework reached production readiness, providing a standardized way for users to express their desired outcomes (intents), which can then be fulfilled by various solvers, simplifying complex DeFi interactions.
- L1 fast confirmation rule implementations progressed across consensus clients, aiming to reduce the time users wait for transactions to be considered final, improving responsiveness and user confidence.
- Interoperability standards like ERC-7930 + ERC-7828 (Interoperable Addresses and Names) and ERC-7888 (Crosschain Broadcaster) moved forward, laying the groundwork for more seamless interactions across different chains and Layer 2 solutions.
An Impactful 2026: Reimagining Protocol’s Structure
The remarkable achievements of 2025, particularly the successful deployment of Pectra and Fusaka, have provided the Ethereum Protocol team with a clear vantage point to refine its strategic organization. While the initial "Scale L1," "Scale Blobs," and "Improve UX" initiatives served their purpose admirably, the evolving landscape of Ethereum development necessitates a more integrated and forward-looking framework. As such, Protocol’s work for 2026 has been reorganized into three distinct, yet deeply interconnected, tracks: Scale, Improve UX, and Harden the L1.
The "Scale" Track: A Unified Front for Throughput and Data Availability
Led by Ansgar Dietrichs, Marius van der Wijden, and Raúl Kripalani
The newly consolidated "Scale" track merges the previous "Scale L1" and "Scale Blobs" initiatives into a single, cohesive effort. This strategic unification acknowledges a fundamental truth in protocol development: the work of increasing Layer 1 execution capacity and expanding data availability throughput are not isolated tasks but are profoundly intertwined.
"This reflects a practical reality: the work of increasing L1 execution capacity and expanding data availability throughput is deeply intertwined," stated a representative from the Protocol team. "Gas limit increases depend on execution engine performance. Blob scaling depends on networking and consensus changes that touch the same client code. Coordinating these efforts under one roof makes us faster and reduces the surface area for a more holistic view."
This track is primarily focused on:
- Continued Gas Limit Increases: Pushing the boundaries of L1 transaction capacity, carefully balancing throughput with network health and decentralization. This involves continuous optimization of execution client performance and EVM efficiency.
- Further Blob Scaling: Building on PeerDAS, the team will explore and implement further enhancements to blob capacity and efficiency, ensuring L2s have ample, cost-effective data availability. This includes research into more advanced data availability schemes and continued BPO forks.
- Execution Layer Enhancements: Optimizing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and execution clients to handle higher transaction volumes and more complex operations efficiently. This might involve exploring new opcode additions or modifications to improve gas efficiency for common operations.
- Network Layer Optimizations: Improving the underlying peer-to-peer network for faster block propagation and more robust data distribution, essential for supporting increased transaction and blob data loads.
The unified "Scale" track aims to provide a clear, coordinated vision for Ethereum’s core scaling, ensuring that both execution and data availability evolve in tandem, preventing bottlenecks and maximizing the network’s overall throughput.
The "Improve UX" Track: Towards Seamless and Intuitive On-Chain Experiences
Led by Barnabé Monnot and Matt Garnett
The "Improve UX" track continues its vital mission from the previous year but with a sharpened focus on two areas deemed highest-leverage for Ethereum’s usability in 2026: native account abstraction and interoperability. This track is dedicated to transforming how users interact with Ethereum, making it as intuitive and frictionless as traditional web applications.
On native account abstraction (AA), the team recognizes EIP-7702 as a significant first step, but the ultimate vision is more ambitious. "EIP-7702 was an important step, but the end state is smart contract wallets as the default without bundlers, relayers, or extra gas overhead," explained a Protocol spokesperson. This involves pushing proposals like EIP-7701 and the more recent EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions), which aim to embed smart account logic directly into the protocol itself. The benefits are manifold:
- Seamless Smart Contract Wallets: Users would experience the flexibility and security of smart contract wallets (e.g., multi-sig, social recovery, custom logic) as the default, without needing intermediary bundlers or relayers, simplifying transaction flows and reducing friction.
- Gas Efficiency: By integrating AA directly into the protocol, the overhead associated with current AA implementations can be dramatically reduced, making smart contract wallets cheaper to use.
- Post-Quantum Readiness: Native AA provides a natural and robust migration path away from the currently dominant ECDSA-based authentication, which is vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks. This track will also explore proposals to make verifying quantum-resistant signatures in the EVM significantly more gas-efficient, future-proofing Ethereum’s security.
On interoperability, the team builds upon the foundation laid by the Open Intents Framework. The goal remains achieving seamless, trust-minimized cross-Layer 2 (L2) interactions. This involves:
- Faster L1 Confirmations: Continued progress on reducing L1 confirmation times directly supports faster and more reliable L2 settlement, which is critical for smooth cross-L2 communication.
- Shorter L2 Settlement Times: Working with L2 teams to optimize their settlement processes on L1, ensuring that transactions finalized on L2s are quickly and securely recorded on the mainnet.
- Standardized Cross-Chain Communication: Further development and adoption of interoperability standards (like those seen in 2025) to ensure consistent and secure communication pathways between various L2s and the L1.
The "Improve UX" track is critical for making Ethereum accessible and practical for a global user base, moving beyond the early adopter phase into widespread utility.
The "Harden the L1" Track: Fortifying Ethereum’s Core Principles
Led by Fredrik Svantes, Parithosh Jayanthi, and Thomas Thiery
The "Harden the L1" track is a brand new addition to Protocol’s structure, reflecting a deliberate decision to dedicate focused attention on preserving and strengthening Ethereum’s foundational properties amidst rapid scaling and evolution. This track is about ensuring that as Ethereum grows, it remains true to the values that make it valuable: decentralization, security, and censorship resistance.
"Harden the L1 is a new track, and it reflects something we think deserves dedicated focus: making sure that as Ethereum scales and evolves, it retains the properties that make it valuable in the first place," stated the Protocol team. This covers several critical areas:
- Censorship Resistance: Developing and implementing mechanisms to bolster Ethereum’s resistance to censorship, both at the protocol level and through client diversity initiatives. This includes exploring enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) to mitigate risks associated with MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) centralization.
- Network Decentralization: Continuously monitoring and implementing improvements to maintain and enhance the decentralization of the network. This involves supporting client diversity, reducing node operator barriers, and ensuring a healthy distribution of staking power.
- Protocol Security: Proactive research and implementation of security enhancements across all layers of the protocol, from consensus mechanisms to the EVM. This includes formal verification efforts, bug bounty programs, and rapid response capabilities.
- State Growth Management: Building on history expiry, this involves further strategies to manage the growth of the blockchain state, ensuring that running a full node remains feasible for individuals and small entities, thereby safeguarding decentralization.
- Resilience and Stability: Enhancing the network’s ability to withstand various stressors, from network partitions to malicious attacks, ensuring continuous operation and high availability.
The "Harden the L1" track acts as a vital guardian of Ethereum’s core tenets, ensuring that innovation does not come at the expense of the network’s fundamental security and decentralized nature. It is an acknowledgment that a robust foundation is paramount for sustainable growth.
Looking Ahead: Glamsterdam, Hegotá, and Beyond
The ambition for 2026 is clear, with two major network upgrades already on the horizon: Glamsterdam targeted for the first half of the year, and Hegotá planned to follow later. These upgrades promise to build extensively on the foundations laid in 2025 and align perfectly with the new three-track structure.
Glamsterdam is expected to deliver significant advancements, potentially including:
- Parallel Execution: A highly anticipated feature that would allow multiple transactions to be processed simultaneously, dramatically increasing the L1’s throughput without necessarily increasing the gas limit in the same way.
- Significantly Higher Gas Limits: Building on the 2025 increase, Glamsterdam aims to push the L1 gas limit further, optimizing for the performance gains achieved through execution client improvements.
- Continued Blob Scaling Enhancements: Further refinements and increases to blob capacity, ensuring the L2 ecosystem continues to thrive with low data costs.
Hegotá, planned for later in 2026, is anticipated to focus on even deeper structural changes, potentially introducing:
- Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS): A critical step towards mitigating the centralization risks associated with MEV and enhancing censorship resistance, moving the process of block building and proposing into the protocol itself.
- Advanced Native Account Abstraction Features: Further progress on integrating smart account logic directly into the protocol, potentially moving closer to the "smart contract wallets as default" vision.
- Post-Quantum Security Implementations: Introducing more robust, quantum-resistant cryptographic primitives into the protocol, preparing Ethereum for the future of computing.
The Protocol team has committed to continuing its track-level updates, providing transparent insights into their progress. For those eager to follow along or get involved, protocol.ethereum.foundation remains the best starting point.
Implications: A Stronger, More Accessible Ethereum
The strategic reorganization and ambitious roadmap for 2026 carry profound implications for all participants in the Ethereum ecosystem and the broader blockchain industry.
For Users: The focus on "Improve UX" promises a dramatically smoother and more intuitive experience. Native account abstraction will make smart contract wallets the norm, offering features like social recovery, gas sponsorship, and batched transactions without the current complexities. This translates to lower transaction costs, enhanced security, and a user experience that more closely resembles traditional applications, removing significant barriers to entry for mainstream adoption. Interoperability efforts mean seamless, trust-minimized interactions across different L2s, reducing fragmentation and unlocking a truly composable decentralized future.
For Developers: A clearer, more consolidated "Scale" track provides a more predictable and robust foundation for building decentralized applications (dApps) and Layer 2 solutions. Increased L1 throughput and abundant, cheap blob data mean developers can build more complex, data-intensive applications without worrying about prohibitive costs or congestion. The "Improve UX" track will yield native tools and standards that simplify dApp development for better user onboarding and engagement. The "Harden the L1" track ensures that the underlying protocol remains a secure, censorship-resistant, and decentralized platform, providing long-term stability for their innovations.
For Stakers and Validators: The ongoing scaling efforts, particularly with PeerDAS and future blob enhancements, significantly reduce the hardware and bandwidth requirements for running a validator, promoting greater decentralization. The increased max effective validator balance offers flexibility, while faster onboarding times mean a more responsive and robust staking ecosystem. The "Harden the L1" track’s focus on decentralization and protocol security directly benefits validators by securing their staked assets and ensuring the long-term health of the network they support.
For the Ethereum Ecosystem: The 2026 roadmap signifies a mature and comprehensive approach to protocol development. By consolidating scaling efforts and introducing a dedicated track for hardening the L1, Ethereum is not just chasing throughput but also consciously preserving its core values of decentralization, security, and censorship resistance. This balanced approach is crucial for maintaining Ethereum’s position as the leading smart contract platform and a credible foundation for the global digital economy. The planned upgrades, particularly those relating to parallel execution and enshrined PBS, represent foundational shifts that will unlock unprecedented levels of performance and resilience.
Broader Impact: Ethereum’s continued evolution serves as a blueprint for the entire blockchain industry. Its commitment to open-source development, community-driven governance, and a relentless pursuit of scalability and usability, while never compromising on core principles, demonstrates a path toward truly decentralized and impactful technology. The successful execution of this ambitious roadmap will solidify Ethereum’s role as a critical piece of global digital infrastructure, enabling a new generation of internet applications and services.
While the path ahead is undoubtedly complex, requiring immense coordination and ingenuity from a global community of researchers and developers, the momentum from 2025 and the clear strategic vision for 2026 suggest that Ethereum is well-equipped to meet these challenges head-on. The message from the Protocol team is simple and resolute: "Let’s keep shipping."
