Why 2026 Marks a Turning Point for Ethereum’s Scaling Roadmap

From Concept to Execution: Ethereum’s Scaling Direction

(Image source: ethereum)

Ethereum’s upcoming upgrades reflect a broader architectural transition. The focus is moving away from incremental tweaks toward foundational changes that prepare Layer 1 for sustained growth in transaction demand. Central to this transition is the Glamsterdam fork, currently expected to go live around mid-2026, which introduces protocol-level adjustments designed to support higher performance without compromising decentralization.

Key Changes Expected in the Glamsterdam Fork

Ethereum core developers are finalizing which EIPs will be included in Glamsterdam. Among them, two confirmed changes stand out for their long-term impact on execution efficiency and validator operations.

Block Access Lists: Enabling Near-Parallel Processing

Historically, Ethereum transactions have been executed in a largely sequential manner. Block Access Lists aim to change this by allowing blocks to declare how transactions interact with shared state in advance. With this information, clients can safely process multiple transactions concurrently when no conflicts exist.

This approach reduces reliance on disk access by preloading relevant data into memory, easing current bottlenecks. While not full parallel execution, it lays the groundwork for higher TPS and larger block capacity without immediately pushing gas limits to extremes.

Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS)

Ethereum already uses proposer-builder separation through MEV-Boost, but this setup depends heavily on off-chain relays. ePBS seeks to integrate this separation directly into the consensus layer, reducing trust assumptions and centralization risks.

From a scaling perspective, ePBS introduces greater timing flexibility. Validators gain more time to receive and verify ZK proofs, lowering the risk of penalties caused by latency. Researchers expect this shift to make ZK-based validation more practical on Layer 1, opening the door to future gas limit increases aligned with ZK adoption.

Gas Limits on L1 and Blob Expansion on L2

Ethereum’s Layer 1 gas limit has already reached 60 million, and further increases are anticipated throughout 2026. While developers differ on exact targets, there is broad agreement that gas limits will continue to rise alongside delayed execution techniques and ZK advancements.

On the Layer 2 side, scaling efforts are centered on expanding blob capacity. A significant increase in blob availability would allow rollups to include far more transactions per block, pushing aggregate L2 throughput toward the hundreds of thousands of TPS. In parallel, some L2 networks are upgrading their execution environments to deliver high-speed performance without requiring users to move assets off Ethereum mainnet.

Heze-Bogota Fork: A Late-2026 Focus on Censorship Resistance

Beyond Glamsterdam, Ethereum is also preparing for a second fork toward the end of 2026, known as Heze-Bogota. Current discussions emphasize Fork-Choice Inclusion Lists (FOCIL), a mechanism designed to strengthen censorship resistance rather than improve throughput.

FOCIL allows multiple validators to signal that certain transactions must be included in blocks. Even if some validators refuse to cooperate, transactions still retain a path to final inclusion. This proposal reinforces Ethereum’s long-standing commitment to neutrality and permissionless access at the protocol level.

Conclusion

For Ethereum, 2026 is less about short-term performance gains and more about a deep structural shift. Through Glamsterdam and Heze-Bogota, the network is moving toward a future defined by parallel execution, ZK-friendly validation, and modular scaling across Layer 1 and Layer 2. These upgrades collectively aim to ensure Ethereum can support a vastly larger on-chain economy—while preserving decentralization and security as core principles for the decade ahead.