Ethereum's Biggest Roadmap Since the Merge Lands in Three Tracks
The Ethereum Foundation published its official 2026 protocol priorities on February 18, organizing the year's entire development agenda into three tracks: Scale, Improve UX, and Harden the L1. Two named upgrades, Glamsterdam in the first half of 2026 and Hegota later in the year, will deliver these changes in stages. As of February 21, 2026, ETH trades near $1,967 with a market cap of roughly $237 billion.
This is not a vague wish list. The document names track leads, references specific EIPs, and builds on a 2025 that already shipped two major upgrades (Pectra and Fusaka), doubled blob throughput, and pushed the gas limit from 30 million to 60 million for the first time since 2021. The 2026 plan picks up exactly where those wins left off and accelerates.
The official blog post lays out the full technical scope. Here is what it means for the network, for users, and for the broader ecosystem.
Scale: Pushing Toward 100 Million Gas and Beyond
The Scale track, led by Ansgar Dietrichs, Marius van der Wijden, and Raul Kripalani, merges what were previously separate "Scale L1" and "Scale Blobs" efforts into a single work stream. The headline target is pushing the gas limit toward and beyond 100 million, nearly doubling the current 60 million cap.
This is not a speculative number. The Foundation has already demonstrated the path: Block-level Access Lists (EIP-7928) and ongoing client benchmarking will support the increase, while enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS via EIP-7732) restructures how blocks are built to handle the added load.
Blob scaling continues as well. After Fusaka's PeerDAS implementation (EIP-7594) delivered an 8x increase in theoretical blob capacity by letting validators sample rather than download full blob data, the 2026 plan calls for further blob parameter increases. For layer-2 rollups that depend on Ethereum for data availability, this directly reduces posting costs.
The most forward-looking piece of the Scale track is the zkEVM attester client, which is being pushed toward production. Once live, validators could verify execution using zero-knowledge proofs rather than re-executing every transaction, a fundamental shift in how Ethereum scales its base layer.
Improve UX: Smart Wallets Become the Default
The Improve UX track, led by Barnabe Monnot and Matt Garnett, carries a deceptively simple goal: make every wallet on Ethereum a smart contract wallet by default, without the bundlers, relayers, or extra gas overhead that current account abstraction solutions require.
The technical path runs through Frame Transactions (EIP-7701 and EIP-8141), which move account logic directly into the protocol layer. Combined with the earlier EIP-7702 from the Pectra upgrade (which let externally owned accounts temporarily execute smart contract code), the result is native account abstraction baked into Ethereum itself.
Why this matters practically: smart contract wallets enable social recovery (no more lost seed phrases), session keys (approve a game or app once instead of signing every transaction), gas sponsorship (dApps pay fees on behalf of users), and batched transactions. These features exist today through third-party infrastructure, but native support removes the middleware tax and makes them available to every wallet by default.
The UX track also targets cross-L2 interoperability through the Open Intents Framework, which reached production in 2025. Faster L1 finality and shorter L2 settlement windows are part of the plan, meaning moving assets between rollups should feel closer to a single-chain experience.
There is a post-quantum dimension here too. Migrating from ECDSA signatures to quantum-resistant alternatives is easier when accounts are already smart contracts that can swap their signature schemes without changing addresses.
Harden the L1: The Trillion Dollar Security Initiative
The third track, led by Fredrik Svantes, Parithosh Jayanthi, and Thomas Thiery, tackles what the Foundation calls the "Trillion Dollar Security Initiative," a name that reflects both Ethereum's current value secured and the ambition to handle significantly more.
Post-quantum readiness sits at the top. While no quantum computer can currently break ECDSA, the Foundation is not waiting for that day to arrive. Research into quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms is underway, and the account abstraction work in the UX track provides the migration path.
Censorship resistance gets concrete tooling through FOCIL (EIP-7805), which gives the protocol mechanisms to handle validator misbehavior at the consensus level. This builds on work previously highlighted by Vitalik Buterin, who argued that FOCIL combined with EIP-8141 would make Ethereum censorship-proof for smart wallets and privacy protocols. The Harden track extends this to blobs and stateless designs through Validity-Only Partial Statelessness (VOPS).
Trust-minimized RPC patterns and post-execution transaction checks round out the security focus. The goal: even if you are running a light client or using an RPC provider, you should not have to trust them blindly.
What 2025 Built That 2026 Builds On
The 2026 roadmap does not exist in isolation. It sits on top of a productive 2025:
- Pectra (May 2025): EIP-7702 (EOA smart contract execution), EIP-7691 (doubled blob throughput), EIP-7251 (max validator balance raised to 2,048 ETH), EIP-6110 (faster validator onboarding)
- Fusaka (December 2025): PeerDAS (EIP-7594), 8x theoretical blob capacity, validators sample instead of downloading
- Gas limit: Increased from 30M to 60M, the first significant raise since 2021
- History expiry: Removed pre-Merge data, saving hundreds of gigabytes of storage per node
- Interoperability standards: ERC-7930, ERC-7828, ERC-7888 advanced
This context matters because the 2026 plan is not starting from scratch. The tools for scaling (PeerDAS, gas limit mechanics), UX (EIP-7702, Open Intents), and security (FOCIL research, statelessness) already have production foundations. The 2026 work is about pushing each to its next stage.
What This Means for ETH Holders and DeFi Users
For anyone holding ETH or using Ethereum-based protocols, the practical impacts break into three categories.
Lower costs: Higher gas limits and continued blob scaling mean cheaper transactions on L1 and lower data availability costs for L2s. If you are using self-custody wallets that interact with DeFi protocols, your transaction fees on mainnet should continue trending downward.
Better wallet experience: Native account abstraction removes the need for specialized wallet infrastructure. Cards and wallets built on Ethereum, including products from vendors like MetaMask and Gnosis Pay, stand to benefit from protocol-level features that currently require custom middleware. Gas sponsorship becoming native means dApps can onboard users who have never held ETH.
Stronger security guarantees: Post-quantum readiness and censorship resistance matter most for high-value use cases. The $17 billion in tokenized real-world assets now sitting on Ethereum mainnet (up 315% year-over-year) needs infrastructure that can survive not just today's threat landscape but tomorrow's. The Trillion Dollar Security Initiative is the Foundation's answer.
Leadership Transition Adds Context
The roadmap arrives during an organizational shift. Co-executive director Tomasz Stanczak announced his departure effective end of February, with Bastian Aue assuming interim co-executive director duties alongside President Aya Miyaguchi.
The timing is notable but the substance of the roadmap suggests continuity rather than disruption. The three-track structure, named leads, and specific EIP references indicate that technical planning was locked in before the leadership change. Development teams are not waiting for the transition to settle.
FAQ
How many EIPs will Glamsterdam include? Glamsterdam targets up to 22 EIPs, making it one of the most comprehensive single upgrades in Ethereum's history. The upgrade focuses on L1 scalability, ePBS, blob scaling, and early account abstraction components.
When will native account abstraction go live? The Foundation is targeting both Glamsterdam (H1 2026) and Hegota (H2 2026) for staged delivery. Frame Transactions via EIP-7701 and EIP-8141 are the key proposals, but full native support may span both upgrades.
Is Ethereum actually at risk from quantum computers? Not today. No quantum computer can currently break ECDSA. But the Foundation is building migration paths now because retrofitting cryptographic primitives after a quantum breakthrough would be far more disruptive than preparing in advance. The account abstraction work provides a clean upgrade path for signature schemes.
Will the gas limit increase affect stakers? Higher gas limits increase hardware requirements for validators. The Foundation's client benchmarking and Block-level Access Lists (EIP-7928) are designed to ensure the increase is safe for the current validator set, but solo stakers running minimal hardware should monitor requirements as the limit rises.
Does this roadmap affect layer-2 rollups? Directly. Continued blob scaling and PeerDAS improvements reduce the cost of posting data to Ethereum, which is the primary expense for rollups. Faster L1 finality also shortens the time L2 users must wait for settlement.
Overview
The Ethereum Foundation's 2026 protocol priorities represent the most structured development roadmap the network has published since the Merge. Three named tracks (Scale, Improve UX, Harden the L1) with designated leads and specific EIP targets replace the looser research-driven approach of previous years. Glamsterdam in H1 and Hegota in H2 will deliver up to 22 EIPs covering everything from 100M gas limits to native smart wallets to post-quantum cryptography. For users, this means cheaper transactions, better wallet experiences, and stronger security guarantees on a network that already hosts $17 billion in tokenized real-world assets. The roadmap is ambitious but grounded in 2025's delivered upgrades, and the specificity of the plan, down to named researchers and EIP numbers, suggests the Foundation intends to ship rather than just signal.
Recommended Reading
- Vitalik Buterin Says FOCIL and EIP-8141 Together Will Make Ethereum Censorship-Proof for Smart Wallets and Privacy Protocols
- MetaMask Now Auto-Routes Stablecoin Swaps Into Yield-Bearing Tokens So Your Idle Dollars Never Stop Earning
- BNP Paribas Puts a French Money Market Fund on Ethereum, Signaling That Europe's Largest Bank Is Done With Private Chains
