Last June, the Ethereum Foundation unveiled its "Protocol" initiative, a strategic framework designed to guide development across three core pillars: Scale L1, Scale Blobs, and Improve UX. This organizational shift marked a significant moment, aiming to streamline progress and enhance the network’s capabilities. A year has passed since this announcement, a period characterized by substantial achievements and a clear evolution in strategic thinking. This report delves into the accomplishments of the past year, outlines the refined vision for the future, and details the forward-looking plans for 2026, as articulated by key figures within the Ethereum development community.
A Productive 2025: Landmark Upgrades and Substantial Advancements
The year 2025 proved to be one of the most productive in Ethereum’s protocol development history. The network successfully implemented two major upgrades, Pectra and Fusaka, delivering a suite of enhancements that addressed critical areas of scalability, efficiency, and user experience. These upgrades were not isolated events but represented the culmination of extensive research, development, and community consensus.
The Pectra upgrade, launched in May 2025, introduced Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 7702. This pivotal change empowers Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) with the temporary ability to execute smart contract code. The implications are far-reaching, unlocking new possibilities for transaction batching, enabling gas sponsorship mechanisms for smoother user onboarding, and facilitating more robust social recovery solutions for account security. Beyond user-facing features, Pectra significantly boosted the network’s data availability capabilities by doubling blob throughput. It also raised the maximum effective validator balance to 2,048 ETH, a move aimed at optimizing validator economics and network security. Furthermore, the upgrade dramatically reduced validator onboarding times, a crucial step in decentralizing network participation and increasing its resilience.
Following Pectra, the Fusaka upgrade arrived in December 2025, bringing the innovative PeerDAS (Data Availability Sampling) to the mainnet. This technology fundamentally alters how validators interact with blob data. Instead of downloading entire blob chunks, validators now sample small portions, drastically reducing bandwidth requirements. This efficiency gain is projected to enable an eightfold increase in theoretical blob capacity, a monumental leap for data availability on the network. Alongside Fusaka, two Blob Parameter Only (BPO) forks were deployed. These initial steps are designed to gradually increase the number of blobs per block, transitioning from the initial target of six towards significantly higher capacities in future iterations.
The cumulative effect of these upgrades, coupled with ongoing community efforts, has been a substantial increase in Ethereum’s transaction processing capacity. The mainnet gas limit was raised from an initial 30 million to 60 million, marking the first significant increase since 2021. This doubled capacity directly translates to more transactions being processed per block, a vital improvement for a growing ecosystem.
In parallel, advancements in node efficiency were realized through the implementation of history expiry. This feature systematically removes pre-Merge historical data from full nodes, resulting in savings of hundreds of gigabytes of disk space per node. This reduction in storage requirements makes running a full Ethereum node more accessible, thereby promoting greater decentralization and network health.
On the user experience front, the year saw considerable progress. The Open Intents Framework, a project aimed at facilitating more flexible and user-friendly transaction execution, reached a production-ready stage. Efforts to implement L1 fast confirmation rules across various consensus clients advanced significantly, promising quicker transaction finality. Moreover, the ecosystem saw the maturation of interoperability standards. The introduction of ERC-7930 and ERC-7828 for interoperable addresses and names, along with ERC-7888 for a cross-chain broadcaster, laid crucial groundwork for a more connected and seamless multi-chain experience.
As the Ethereum development community reflects on these achievements, there’s a clear recognition that while 2025 was a year of executing on immediate goals, the evolving needs of the ecosystem necessitate a refined organizational structure for future endeavors.
The Evolving Protocol Framework: Introducing Three Strategic Tracks for 2026
The initial "Protocol" initiative, with its three strategic initiatives – Scale L1, Scale Blobs, and Improve UX – effectively guided the development efforts leading up to and through the Pectra and Fusaka upgrades. However, as these significant milestones are now behind the community, a strategic recalibration is underway. The focus is shifting towards a higher-level organizational framework that better reflects the interconnectedness of scaling efforts and the long-term vision for Ethereum.
Beginning in 2026, the Protocol’s work will be reorganized into three distinct, yet interconnected, strategic tracks. This new structure aims to foster greater synergy, streamline resource allocation, and ensure a more holistic approach to Ethereum’s continued evolution.
Scale: Unifying Execution and Data Availability Efforts
Led by Ansgar Dietrichs, Marius van der Wijden, and Raül Kripalani
The "Scale" track represents a consolidation of the previous "Scale L1" and "Scale Blobs" initiatives into a single, unified effort. This integration acknowledges the inherent synergy between increasing Layer 1 execution capacity and expanding data availability throughput. The practical reality is that these two areas are deeply intertwined; enhancements in execution engine performance are prerequisites for higher gas limits, while advancements in blob scaling rely on networking and consensus changes that impact the same core client code. By coordinating these efforts under a single leadership umbrella, the development process is expected to accelerate, and a more comprehensive view of scaling solutions can be maintained, reducing potential points of friction and duplication.
The core objectives of the Scale track are multifaceted and ambitious:
- Execution Layer Enhancements: This includes ongoing work to further increase the mainnet gas limit, building upon the successful doubling achieved in 2025. This will likely involve optimizations within the execution environment and potentially further modifications to block processing mechanisms.
- Data Availability Scaling: The momentum from PeerDAS will be sustained, with continued research and development aimed at further increasing blob capacity. This could involve exploring more efficient data encoding, improved sampling techniques, and protocol-level adjustments to accommodate higher data volumes.
- Execution-Data Availability Interdependencies: A key focus will be on managing the complex interplay between execution capacity and data availability. This includes ensuring that advancements in one area do not create bottlenecks in the other and that the overall system remains balanced and efficient.
- Network Performance Optimization: Efforts will continue to optimize network performance, ensuring that the transmission and propagation of transaction and blob data are as efficient as possible. This may involve enhancements to peer-to-peer networking protocols and data propagation strategies.
- Client-Level Optimizations: The Scale track will drive significant efforts within Ethereum’s diverse client ecosystem. This includes ensuring that the protocol-level changes are efficiently implemented and optimized across various consensus and execution clients, maintaining a high degree of client diversity.
Improve UX: Advancing Native Account Abstraction and Interoperability
Led by Barnabé Monnot and Matt Garnett
The "Improve UX" track carries forward the critical user experience initiatives from the previous framework, but with a sharpened focus on two high-leverage areas for Ethereum’s usability in 2026: native account abstraction and interoperability. The goal is to create a more seamless, secure, and intuitive experience for all users, from novice individuals to sophisticated developers.
- Native Account Abstraction: While EIP-7702 was a significant step in enabling temporary smart contract execution for EOAs, the ultimate objective is to establish smart contract wallets as the default account type. This vision aims to eliminate the reliance on bundlers, relayers, and additional gas overhead that currently characterize many account abstraction solutions. Proposals such as EIP-7701 and the more recent EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions) are actively exploring ways to embed smart account logic directly into the protocol. This native integration promises to significantly simplify wallet management and enhance security.
- Post-Quantum Readiness: A critical aspect of native account abstraction is its intersection with post-quantum security. By shifting away from current ECDSA-based authentication, native AA provides a natural migration path towards quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms. Complementary research is underway to develop and integrate proposals that will make it significantly more gas-efficient to verify quantum-resistant signatures within the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This proactive approach is vital for ensuring the long-term security and resilience of the network against future threats.
- Interoperability and Cross-L2 Communication: Building on the foundation established by the Open Intents Framework, this track is dedicated to achieving seamless, trust-minimized interactions across Layer 2 (L2) solutions. The ongoing progress in achieving faster L1 confirmations and shorter L2 settlement times directly supports this goal, enabling more efficient and reliable cross-chain communication. The development of standards like ERC-7930, ERC-7828, and ERC-7888 are crucial enablers for this vision, paving the way for a more cohesive and interconnected Ethereum ecosystem.
Harden the L1: Ensuring Foundational Security and Robustness
Led by Fredrik Svantes, Parithosh Jayanthi, and Thomas Thiery
The introduction of the "Harden the L1" track signifies a dedicated focus on preserving and enhancing the core properties that make Ethereum valuable. As the network scales and evolves, ensuring its foundational security, censorship resistance, and overall robustness becomes paramount. This track addresses critical aspects that underpin the long-term health and integrity of the Layer 1 blockchain.
Key areas of focus for the Harden the L1 track include:
- Censorship Resistance: Developing and implementing mechanisms to actively combat censorship at the protocol level. This involves ensuring that transactions can be processed without undue interference and that the network remains open and permissionless.
- Validator Security and Economic Incentives: Continuously evaluating and refining the economic incentives and security parameters for validators. This includes ensuring that staking remains attractive and secure, thereby reinforcing network decentralization and security.
- Network Resilience and Attack Resistance: Proactively identifying and mitigating potential attack vectors and vulnerabilities. This involves ongoing research into novel attack surfaces and the development of robust defenses to protect the network’s integrity.
- Protocol Robustness and Stability: Focusing on ensuring the long-term stability and reliability of the Ethereum protocol. This includes rigorous testing, formal verification, and ongoing audits to minimize bugs and unexpected behaviors.
- Transition to Post-Merge Economics: Further optimizing the economic model of the post-Merge Ethereum, ensuring that it remains sustainable and aligned with the network’s goals of decentralization and security. This may involve adjustments to fee mechanisms and staking rewards.
- Evolving Cryptographic Standards: Actively engaging with the research community on emerging cryptographic standards, particularly those related to post-quantum cryptography, and developing clear migration paths and integration strategies for the L1.
Looking Ahead: The Glamsterdam and Hegotã Upgrades and the Path Forward
The immediate future of Ethereum protocol development is marked by two significant network upgrades: Glamsterdam, targeted for the first half of 2026, and Hegotã, slated for later in the year. These upcoming upgrades represent the culmination of the strategic shifts and ongoing research efforts discussed.
The ambition behind Glamsterdam and Hegotã is substantial, encompassing features such as parallel execution, a further significant increase in gas limits, enshrined proposer-builder separation (PBS), continued blob scaling, and advancements in censorship resistance, native account abstraction, and post-quantum security. These upgrades are designed to not only enhance performance and scalability but also to solidify Ethereum’s position as a secure, decentralized, and user-friendly blockchain for the long term.
The Ethereum Foundation and its development partners are committed to transparency and community involvement. Regular updates on the progress of each track will be published, mirroring the successful communication strategy employed in 2025. For those wishing to stay informed, engage with the development process, or contribute to the ecosystem, the central hub at protocol.ethereum.foundation serves as the primary resource.
The overarching sentiment within the Ethereum development community is one of continued progress and collaboration. The journey from the initial "Protocol" initiative to the refined three-track structure for 2026 reflects a dynamic and adaptive approach to building a more robust, scalable, and accessible blockchain. The commitment remains clear: to continue shipping impactful upgrades and to foster an environment where innovation and decentralization go hand in hand. The ongoing evolution of the Ethereum protocol underscores its dedication to meeting the growing demands of a global decentralized ecosystem.
