The Ethereum protocol has completed a year of remarkable progress, culminating in two major network upgrades and significant strides across its core strategic initiatives. Building on this momentum, the Ethereum Foundation has announced a strategic realignment of its protocol development efforts, consolidating previous tracks into three overarching pillars: Scale, Improve UX, and Harden the L1. This strategic pivot aims to streamline development, foster deeper synergy between related initiatives, and ensure Ethereum’s continued evolution as a robust and user-friendly decentralized platform.
Launched in June of the previous year, the "Protocol" framework initially organized Ethereum’s development roadmap around three key strategic initiatives: Scale L1, Scale Blobs, and Improve UX. This structured approach proved highly effective, guiding the network through a period of intense innovation and significant upgrades. The past twelve months have witnessed the successful deployment of these initiatives, solidifying Ethereum’s position as a leading blockchain ecosystem.
A Deep Dive into the Achievements of 2025
The year 2025 stands out as one of Ethereum’s most productive periods at the protocol level. The network successfully implemented two critical upgrades: Pectra in May and Fusaka in December. These upgrades not only delivered on promised enhancements but also introduced foundational changes that will shape Ethereum’s future scalability and usability.
The Pectra upgrade, deployed in May 2025, brought forth Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 7702. This groundbreaking EIP empowers Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) with the ability to temporarily execute smart contract code. This capability unlocks a suite of powerful new functionalities for users, including transaction batching, gas sponsorship mechanisms, and enhanced social recovery features for account management. Beyond user-facing improvements, Pectra significantly boosted the network’s data availability capacity by doubling blob throughput. Furthermore, it raised the maximum effective validator balance to 2,048 ETH, a move designed to optimize validator participation and network security. Crucially, Pectra dramatically shortened validator onboarding times, making it more accessible for new participants to join and secure the network.
Following Pectra, the Fusaka upgrade in December 2025 introduced PeerDAS (Data Availability Sampling) to the mainnet. This innovation fundamentally alters how validators interact with blob data. Instead of downloading entire blob payloads, validators now sample fragments of this data. This shift drastically reduces bandwidth requirements for validators and paves the way for a theoretical eightfold increase in blob capacity. Accompanying Fusaka were two Blob Parameter Only (BPO) forks, marking the initial phase of a planned transition from the current six blobs per block to substantially higher targets. This strategic increase in data availability is a critical step towards supporting a more scalable decentralized web.
Intertwined with these major upgrades, the Ethereum community collectively initiated a significant increase in the mainnet gas limit. Starting from an initial 30 million gas, the limit was steadily raised to the current 60 million gas. This represents the first substantial increase since 2021, directly addressing the growing demand for on-chain computation and enabling more complex decentralized applications to operate efficiently.
Furthermore, the introduction of history expiry in July 2025 addressed a growing concern for node operators. This feature systematically removes pre-Merge historical data from full nodes, resulting in a saving of hundreds of gigabytes of disk space per node. This optimization is vital for maintaining the decentralization and accessibility of the Ethereum network by reducing the hardware requirements for running a full node.
On the user experience (UX) front, 2025 saw significant progress. The Open Intents Framework reached production, offering a promising new paradigm for how users interact with smart contracts and decentralized applications. The implementation of L1 fast confirmation rule enhancements across various consensus clients progressed substantially, aiming to reduce transaction latency and improve the overall responsiveness of the network. In parallel, interoperability standards gained traction, with advancements in ERC-7930 + ERC-7828 (Interoperable addresses and names) and ERC-7888 (Crosschain Broadcaster) laying the groundwork for a more interconnected and seamless multi-chain experience.
Strategic Realignment: The Three Pillars of Protocol Development in 2026
As the Ethereum Foundation reflects on the successes of 2025 and looks towards the future, it has recognized the need to evolve its organizational structure to better align with the emerging needs of the Ethereum community. The initial three-initiative framework, while instrumental in achieving key milestones like gas limit increases and PeerDAS deployment, has been re-envisioned to provide a more holistic and synergistic approach to protocol development.
Starting in 2026, Ethereum’s protocol work will be organized under three distinct, yet interconnected, tracks: Scale, Improve UX, and Harden the L1. This new structure aims to foster greater collaboration, reduce redundant efforts, and provide a clearer roadmap for addressing the complex challenges and opportunities facing the Ethereum ecosystem.
Scale: Unifying Execution and Data Availability
Led by Ansgar Dietrichs, Marius van der Wijden, and Raül Kripalani
The Scale track represents a significant consolidation of previous efforts, merging the former "Scale L1" and "Scale Blobs" initiatives into a single, unified endeavor. This integration acknowledges the profound interdependencies between increasing Layer 1 execution capacity and expanding data availability throughput. The success of gas limit increases, for instance, is directly contingent upon the performance optimizations within the execution engine. Similarly, advancements in blob scaling rely on networking and consensus modifications that invariably impact shared client code. By bringing these critical areas under one roof, the Scale track aims to accelerate development cycles and promote a more cohesive, end-to-end approach to scaling Ethereum.
The core focus of the Scale track includes:
- Execution Layer Scaling: Continued efforts to enhance the capacity and efficiency of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), enabling higher transaction throughput and more complex on-chain computations. This involves optimizations in transaction processing, state management, and overall execution engine performance.
- Data Availability Expansion: Building upon the success of PeerDAS, this area will focus on further increasing the theoretical blob capacity of the network. This includes ongoing research and development into more efficient data propagation mechanisms, compression techniques, and potentially future upgrades to the blob architecture. The ultimate goal is to provide ample data availability to support a thriving ecosystem of Layer 2 scaling solutions and decentralized applications.
- Synergistic Development: Fostering close collaboration between execution and consensus client developers to ensure that scaling solutions are implemented efficiently and effectively across the entire network. This includes coordinated efforts to test and deploy new features, minimizing potential conflicts and maximizing performance gains.
The implications of this unified Scale track are substantial. By breaking down silos, developers can leverage cross-pollination of ideas and technologies, leading to more robust and integrated scaling solutions. This could translate into significantly lower transaction fees, faster confirmation times, and the ability for Ethereum to support a global user base with diverse and demanding application needs.
Improve UX: Native Account Abstraction and Seamless Interoperability
Led by Barnabé Monnot and Matt Garnett
The Improve UX track carries forward the critical work initiated in the previous year, with a sharpened focus on two high-leverage areas: native account abstraction and enhanced interoperability. While EIP-7702 represented a significant step towards user-friendly account management, the ultimate vision is to establish smart contract wallets as the default user experience, eliminating the reliance on bundlers, relayers, and additional gas overhead.
This track will explore and advance proposals such as EIP-7701 and the more recent EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions). These proposals aim to embed smart account logic directly into the protocol, creating a more intuitive and secure environment for users. Furthermore, this work has significant implications for post-quantum readiness, as native account abstraction provides a natural migration path away from current ECDSA-based authentication methods, which are vulnerable to quantum computing attacks. Complementary research is also underway to develop more gas-efficient methods for verifying quantum-resistant signatures within the EVM.
On the interoperability front, the Improve UX track will build upon the foundational work of the Open Intents Framework. The overarching objective is to facilitate seamless, trust-minimized cross-Layer 2 interactions. Continued progress on accelerating L1 confirmations and reducing L2 settlement times are crucial enablers for this goal, paving the way for a truly interconnected decentralized ecosystem where assets and information can flow freely and securely between different networks.
The success of the Improve UX track promises to democratize access to Ethereum. By simplifying wallet management, reducing transaction complexity, and enabling effortless cross-chain interactions, it will lower the barrier to entry for new users and developers alike, fostering broader adoption and innovation.
Harden the L1: Ensuring Robustness and Security
Led by Fredrik Svantes, Parithosh Jayanthi, and Thomas Thiery
Harden the L1 is a newly established track, reflecting a deliberate and dedicated focus on ensuring that Ethereum retains its core value propositions – security, decentralization, and censorship resistance – as it scales and evolves. This track acknowledges that as the network grows in complexity and capacity, maintaining its fundamental integrity becomes paramount.
The scope of the Harden the L1 track encompasses several critical areas:
- Censorship Resistance: Developing and implementing mechanisms to mitigate censorship of transactions and state transitions. This involves research into privacy-enhancing technologies, alternative transaction ordering mechanisms, and robust validator incentive structures that discourage censorship.
- Post-Quantum Cryptography Integration: Actively researching and preparing for the integration of quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms. This proactive approach ensures that Ethereum remains secure in the face of future advancements in computing power. The track will explore various cryptographic primitives and their feasibility within the Ethereum ecosystem.
- MEV Mitigation Strategies: Investigating and implementing solutions to address the challenges and potential negative externalities associated with Maximal Extractable Value (MEV). This includes exploring mechanisms for fairer transaction ordering and ensuring that the economic benefits of MEV do not compromise network security or decentralization.
- Network Robustness and Resilience: Continuously assessing and improving the network’s resilience against various attacks and disruptions. This involves fortifying consensus mechanisms, enhancing network connectivity, and developing sophisticated monitoring and response capabilities.
- Decentralization Safeguards: Implementing measures to prevent excessive centralization of power or resources within the network. This could include monitoring validator distribution, proposing changes to staking economics, and fostering a diverse ecosystem of node operators.
The establishment of the Harden the L1 track signals a commitment to the long-term viability and security of Ethereum. By dedicating resources to these fundamental aspects, the Ethereum Foundation is ensuring that the network’s growth does not come at the expense of its core principles, providing a stable and trustworthy foundation for the decentralized future.
Looking Ahead: The Roadmap to Glamsterdam and Beyond
The immediate future of Ethereum protocol development is marked by the upcoming "Glamsterdam" network upgrade, targeted for the first half of 2026. This upgrade is poised to be a significant milestone, incorporating ambitious features such as parallel execution, further substantial increases in gas limits, the integration of enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS), and continued advancements in blob scaling. Alongside these scaling initiatives, Glamsterdam will also see progress in crucial areas like censorship resistance, native account abstraction, and the foundational steps towards post-quantum security.
Following Glamsterdam, the "Hegotà" upgrade is planned for later in 2026, continuing the trajectory of innovation and enhancement. The Ethereum Foundation has pledged to maintain transparency and community engagement by publishing regular track-level updates, mirroring the successful approach taken in the previous year.
For those eager to follow the progress or contribute to these transformative developments, the central hub for information and engagement remains protocol.ethereum.foundation. The collective energy and collaborative spirit of the Ethereum community are poised to continue driving innovation, ensuring that the protocol not only scales to meet global demand but also remains a secure, user-friendly, and resilient foundation for the decentralized future. The message from the core development team is clear: "Let’s keep shipping."
