Ethereum's two major upgrades in 2026: how to achieve both tens of thousands TPS and privacy security breakthroughs?

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In 2025, Ethereum will have two major upgrades, Pectra and Fusaka, which are considered successfully completed. In 2026, Ethereum’s pace remains tight, with plans for two significant upgrades (hard forks): Glamsterdam (around mid-year) and Heze-Bogota (around the end of the year). These upgrades aim to further improve Ethereum’s TPS, privacy, and security.

The Glamsterdam upgrade is designed to make Ethereum faster and cheaper, focusing on several aspects: parallel processing, Gas limit increases, ZK proof verification, and more.

Parallel processing means that currently, Ethereum is a one-way street, processing transactions one by one, which can cause congestion. Parallel processing enables multi-lane operation, allowing multiple transactions to be processed simultaneously. This can significantly boost Ethereum’s speed.

Increasing the Gas limit means raising the “fuel fee” for transactions. Currently, each block has a limit of 60 million units; after the upgrade, it could be increased to 200 million (or even 300 million). This allows more transactions to be included in a single block.

ZK proof verification involves validators previously re-running all transactions repeatedly to check correctness. With ZK proofs, verification can be done directly, saving time, effort, and costs, making the process more efficient.

Combining parallel processing, Gas limit increases, and ZK proof verification—if these upgrades are completed as planned in 2026 (which is a crucial assumption)—Ethereum Layer 1 could gradually achieve a TPS target of 10,000, along with continued expansion of Blob (potentially reaching 72 or more). Layer 2 TPS would also see significant increases. After the 2026 upgrades, the Ethereum ecosystem’s performance should be capable of supporting current various application scenarios.

The Heze-Bogota upgrade mainly focuses on addressing privacy and security shortcomings.

For example, introducing Fork-Choice Inclusion Lists (FOCIL), a mechanism that allows multiple validators to collaboratively force certain transactions into blocks, ensuring that even if malicious actors attempt censorship, transactions can still pass smoothly, enhancing resistance to suppression; it will strengthen privacy protections, making transaction details harder for others to spy on, possibly through better encryption or anonymity techniques; and it will promote decentralization by reducing reliance on a few large nodes, making the network more distributed and less susceptible to manipulation or attacks.

These are current projections; specific implementations may change over time. Stay tuned for updates on the progress of these plans.