In June of the previous year, Ethereum unveiled its strategic framework, "Protocol," designed to galvanize development across three core pillars: Scaling the Layer 1 (L1), Expanding Blob Capacity, and Enhancing User Experience (UX). A year later, the Ethereum Foundation has released a comprehensive update detailing the significant advancements made under this initiative, reflecting on the successes of 2025 and outlining a forward-looking roadmap for 2026. This detailed report underscores a period of unprecedented protocol-level productivity for the Ethereum network, marked by two major network upgrades and substantial progress across all strategic objectives.
A Transformative Year for Ethereum: 2025 in Review
The year 2025 proved to be a watershed moment for Ethereum’s protocol development. The successful deployment of two critical network upgrades, Pectra and Fusaka, alongside continuous improvements in core functionalities, has significantly bolstered the network’s capabilities and user-friendliness.
Pectra Upgrade: A Leap in Transaction Flexibility and Efficiency
Launched onto the mainnet in May 2025, the Pectra upgrade introduced a suite of impactful changes, most notably EIP-7702. This Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) revolutionized how Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) interact with the network by enabling them to temporarily execute smart contract code. This novel functionality unlocks a cascade of benefits for users and developers alike, including advanced transaction batching, facilitating multiple operations in a single transaction to save gas and time. It also paves the way for gas sponsorship models, where third parties can subsidize transaction fees for users, and enhances the potential for robust social recovery mechanisms, improving account security and accessibility.
Beyond EIP-7702, Pectra significantly boosted Ethereum’s data availability layer. The upgrade effectively doubled the throughput for blob data, a crucial component for Layer 2 scaling solutions. Furthermore, it addressed validator economics and efficiency by raising the maximum effective validator balance to 2,048 ETH, a move intended to optimize staking rewards and network security. Critically, Pectra dramatically shortened validator onboarding times through EIP-6110, streamlining the process for new participants to join the consensus mechanism and contribute to network security. This reduction in onboarding friction is vital for fostering a more decentralized and resilient validator set.
Fusaka Upgrade: Scaling Data Availability to Unprecedented Levels
Following closely on the heels of Pectra, the Fusaka upgrade, deployed in December 2025, introduced PeerDAS (Data Availability Sampling) to the Ethereum mainnet. This represents a paradigm shift in how validators interact with blob data. Instead of requiring full download of all blob data, validators now sample it. This method drastically reduces bandwidth requirements for node operators, a significant hurdle for network participation. The architectural change enabled by PeerDAS is projected to facilitate an eightfold increase in theoretical blob capacity, a critical enabler for the next generation of Layer 2 rollups and decentralized applications that rely on high-throughput data availability.
Accompanying Fusaka were two Blob Parameter Optimization (BPO) forks. These forks mark the initial stages of a strategic ramp-up, moving the network from the initial capacity of 6 blobs per block towards significantly higher targets. This phased approach allows for careful monitoring and adjustment, ensuring stability as the network embraces larger data loads.
Broader Network Enhancements in 2025
The impact of Pectra and Fusaka was amplified by other key developments throughout 2025. The mainnet gas limit, a critical metric for on-chain transaction throughput, was steadily increased from an initial 30 million gas to a new high of 60 million gas. This doubling represents the first significant increase since 2021, offering immediate relief to network congestion and enabling more complex smart contract interactions.
History expiry, implemented via EIP-7702, marked another significant achievement. This feature allows full nodes to prune historical data predating the Merge, resulting in substantial disk space savings – potentially hundreds of gigabytes per node. This optimization is crucial for maintaining the long-term viability and accessibility of running a full Ethereum node.
On the user experience front, the Open Intents Framework reached a production-ready state, signaling a move towards more user-centric transaction design. Progress was also made on L1 fast confirmation rule implementations across various consensus clients, aiming to reduce transaction finality times and improve the overall responsiveness of the network. Furthermore, interoperability standards continued to mature. ERC-7930 and ERC-7828, focusing on interoperable addresses and names, alongside ERC-7888 for cross-chain broadcasting, represent foundational steps towards a more connected and seamless multi-chain ecosystem.
Evolving Strategy: Introducing New Protocol Tracks for 2026
With the successful completion of Pectra and Fusaka, and significant progress made across the initial three strategic initiatives, the Ethereum Foundation has announced an evolution in its organizational structure for protocol development. The "Protocol" framework, which guided the network through its recent upgrades, has been refined into three distinct, high-level tracks for 2026. This strategic shift aims to foster a more cohesive and efficient approach to tackling the network’s evolving challenges and opportunities.
The Unified "Scale" Track: Synergizing L1 and Blob Scaling
The "Scale" track, led by Ansgar Dietrichs, Marius van der Wijden, and Raül Kripalani, represents a consolidation of the previous "Scale L1" and "Scale Blobs" initiatives. This unification acknowledges the inherent interdependence between increasing Layer 1 execution capacity and expanding data availability throughput. As the article highlights, gas limit increases are directly tied to the performance of execution engines, while blob scaling necessitates changes in networking and consensus that impact the same core client code. By bringing these efforts under a single umbrella, the Ethereum development team anticipates accelerating progress and adopting a more holistic approach to scaling.
The concrete objectives of the Scale track include:
- Enhancing L1 Execution Capacity: This involves further optimization of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and related components to support significantly higher transaction volumes and more complex computations within each block. The recent increase in the gas limit serves as a foundation, but sustained growth will require deeper architectural improvements.
- Expanding Data Availability Throughput: Building on the success of PeerDAS, this objective focuses on further increasing the amount of data that can be made available on Ethereum, a critical requirement for supporting a multitude of Layer 2 solutions and advanced decentralized applications. This will likely involve continued optimization of blob parameters and potentially new data availability techniques.
- Streamlining Network Upgrades: The unified approach aims to reduce the complexity and potential for fragmentation in future network upgrades by ensuring better coordination between execution and consensus layer development.
"Improve UX" Track: Deepening Account Abstraction and Interoperability
Led by Barnabé Monnot and Matt Garnett, the "Improve UX" track continues the focus on enhancing the user experience, with a refined emphasis on two high-leverage areas: native account abstraction and interoperability.
The previous introduction of EIP-7702 was a significant step, but the ultimate goal is to establish smart contract wallets as the default for all users, eliminating the need for intermediaries like bundlers and relayers, and removing associated gas overhead. Proposals such as EIP-7701 and the more recent EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions) are actively pushing towards embedding smart account logic directly into the protocol. This integration promises a more seamless and secure user experience, akin to modern web applications, while also providing a natural pathway for migrating away from existing cryptographic primitives.
Crucially, this evolution of account abstraction intersects with the critical need for post-quantum readiness. Native account abstraction offers a robust migration path for users to transition from current ECDSA-based authentication methods to quantum-resistant signature schemes. Complementary proposals are in development to significantly improve the gas efficiency of verifying these quantum-resistant signatures within the EVM, a key technical hurdle.
On the interoperability front, the "Improve UX" track builds upon the foundation laid by the Open Intents Framework. The overarching goal remains to facilitate seamless, trust-minimized interactions between Layer 2 solutions and other blockchain networks. Continued progress in reducing L1 confirmation times and L2 settlement durations is directly supportive of this objective, enabling faster and more reliable cross-chain operations.
The New "Harden the L1" Track: Ensuring Network Resilience and Security
A new addition to the strategic framework, the "Harden the L1" track, led by Fredrik Svantes, Parithosh Jayanthi, and Thomas Thiery, addresses a fundamental concern: ensuring that as Ethereum scales and evolves, its core value proposition of security, decentralization, and censorship resistance is not compromised. This track is dedicated to proactively identifying and mitigating potential risks and vulnerabilities inherent in a rapidly advancing blockchain ecosystem.
Key areas of focus for the "Harden the L1" track include:
- Censorship Resistance: Developing and implementing mechanisms to ensure that transactions and smart contract interactions cannot be arbitrarily blocked or censored by any single entity or group. This is a cornerstone of Ethereum’s decentralized ethos.
- Post-Quantum Security: Actively researching and integrating cryptographic primitives that are resilient to attacks from quantum computers, which pose a future threat to current cryptographic standards. This includes exploring and standardizing new signature schemes and encryption methods.
- Network Robustness and Reliability: Identifying and addressing potential single points of failure, improving fault tolerance, and ensuring the overall stability and uptime of the Ethereum network under various conditions. This may involve enhancements to consensus mechanisms, peer-to-peer networking, and client software.
- Economic Security and Incentives: Continuously evaluating and refining the economic models that secure the network, ensuring that incentives remain aligned with the long-term health and integrity of Ethereum.
Looking Ahead: The Ambitious Roadmap for 2026
The Ethereum roadmap for 2026 is marked by ambitious goals, with two major network upgrades, Glamsterdam and Hegotä, slated for deployment. Glamsterdam is targeted for the first half of 2026, with Hegotä planned for later in the year. These upgrades are poised to deliver significant advancements across multiple fronts.
The planned features for these upgrades include:
- Parallel Execution: This aims to dramatically increase transaction processing speed by allowing multiple transactions or parts of transactions to be processed concurrently, significantly boosting overall throughput.
- Higher Gas Limits: Building on the progress of 2025, further increases to the gas limit are expected, providing more room for complex applications and a higher volume of transactions.
- Enshrined Proof-of-Stake (PBS): This refers to the integration of proposer-builder separation directly into the protocol, which is expected to enhance decentralization and security by allowing a wider range of entities to participate in block production.
- Continued Blob Scaling: Further enhancements to data availability capacity are anticipated, supporting the growing needs of Layer 2 solutions.
- Progress on Censorship Resistance: Dedicated efforts to strengthen the network’s resilience against censorship.
- Native Account Abstraction: Continued integration of smart contract wallet functionalities as a default user experience.
- Post-Quantum Security Measures: Implementation of cryptographic advancements to safeguard the network against future quantum computing threats.
The Ethereum Foundation has committed to providing regular, track-level updates, mirroring the transparency of the previous year. The official resource, protocol.ethereum.foundation, will serve as the central hub for those seeking to stay informed and engaged with the ongoing development efforts. The overarching message from the Ethereum community is one of continued momentum and a steadfast commitment to innovation: "Let’s keep shipping." This forward-looking perspective underscores the network’s ongoing dedication to scaling, improving usability, and fortifying its foundational security for the future.
