The Ethereum Foundation has unveiled a comprehensive update on its protocol development, marking a significant year of achievements and charting a strategic course for the future. Introduced in June of the previous year, the "Protocol" initiative established a framework built around three core pillars: Scaling Layer 1 (L1), Scaling Blobs, and Improving User Experience (UX). This strategic alignment has guided substantial progress, culminating in two major network upgrades and a re-evaluation of organizational priorities for the upcoming year. The foundation’s latest communication details these accomplishments, the evolution of its thinking, and the ambitious roadmap for 2026, signaling a continued commitment to enhancing Ethereum’s capabilities and accessibility.
A Year of Transformative Upgrades in 2025
The year 2025 has been exceptionally productive for Ethereum at the protocol level, characterized by the successful deployment of two pivotal network upgrades: Pectra and Fusaka. These upgrades have not only delivered on the initial strategic objectives but have also laid the groundwork for future advancements.
The Pectra upgrade, launched in May, introduced a suite of critical improvements. Foremost among these was Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 7702, a groundbreaking enhancement that grants Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) the ability to temporarily execute smart contract code. This functionality unlocks a cascade of new possibilities for users and developers, including more efficient transaction batching, the enablement of gas sponsorship mechanisms, and the implementation of more robust social recovery features for account management. Beyond UX improvements, Pectra significantly boosted Ethereum’s scalability by doubling blob throughput, a key component for data availability. Furthermore, it raised the maximum effective validator balance to 2,048 Ether, a move designed to optimize staking economics and network security. The upgrade also dramatically reduced validator onboarding times, streamlining the process for new participants to join the network’s consensus mechanism.
Following Pectra, the Fusaka upgrade was deployed in December, bringing another major advancement to the mainnet: PeerDAS (Data Availability Sampling). This innovative approach shifts the responsibility for blob data verification from full downloads by validators to sampling, a method that drastically reduces bandwidth requirements. Consequently, Fusaka enables a theoretical eight-fold increase in blob capacity, a crucial step towards accommodating the growing data needs of the Ethereum ecosystem. Accompanying Fusaka were two Blob Parameter Only (BPO) forks, which initiated a planned transition from the current six blobs per block towards higher capacity targets, signaling a clear trajectory for future data scaling.
These upgrades, coupled with ongoing community efforts, have led to a substantial increase in the mainnet gas limit, a metric that had remained static for several years. The gas limit has seen a significant rise from an initial 30 million to the current 60 million, marking the first substantial increase since 2021. This expansion of transaction processing capacity is vital for supporting the burgeoning decentralized applications (dApps) and the increasing on-chain activity.
In parallel, significant strides were made in optimizing node operations and enhancing user experience. The implementation of "History Expiry" has begun the process of removing pre-Merge historical data from full nodes, leading to substantial savings in disk space, potentially hundreds of gigabytes per node. This optimization is crucial for maintaining the efficiency and accessibility of running Ethereum nodes.
On the user experience front, the Open Intents Framework has reached a production-ready state, promising a more intuitive and powerful way for users to interact with the network. Progress has also been made on L1 fast confirmation rule implementations across various consensus clients, a development that will lead to quicker transaction finality for users. Furthermore, interoperability standards have seen notable advancements, with the progression of ERC-7930 and ERC-7828 for interoperable addresses and names, and ERC-7888 for a cross-chain broadcaster, all aimed at creating a more seamless and connected Ethereum ecosystem.
Evolving Strategy: The Three Pillars of Protocol in 2026
As the Ethereum Foundation reflects on the successes of 2025, it recognizes the need for an evolving organizational structure to address the dynamic needs of the Ethereum community. The initial "Protocol" initiatives, while effective in driving key deliverables like gas limit increases, PeerDAS deployment, and UX improvements, have served their purpose. With these major milestones achieved, the focus is shifting to a higher-level strategic organization that fosters a more integrated approach to development.
Starting in 2026, Ethereum’s protocol development will be consolidated under three overarching tracks, designed to streamline efforts and maximize impact: Scale, Improve UX, and Harden the L1.
Scale: Unifying Execution and Data Availability
The "Scale" track, spearheaded by Ansgar Dietrichs, Marius van der Wijden, and Raül Kripalani, represents a significant consolidation of previous efforts. It merges the distinct "Scale L1" and "Scale Blobs" initiatives into a single, unified endeavor. This integration is driven by the practical realization that increasing Layer 1 execution capacity and expanding data availability throughput are intrinsically linked. Advancements in gas limit increases are contingent upon the performance of the execution engine, while blob scaling relies on networking and consensus changes that directly impact the same client codebases. By coordinating these efforts under one roof, the team aims to accelerate progress and adopt a more holistic perspective on scaling solutions.
Key objectives for the Scale track include:
- Enhanced Execution Capacity: Continuing the trend of gas limit increases through optimizations in execution clients and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This will involve further research into parallel execution and other architectural improvements to boost transaction processing power.
- Maximized Data Availability: Building upon the success of PeerDAS, this track will focus on further increasing blob capacity and optimizing data availability layers to support the growing demands of rollups and other data-intensive applications. This may involve exploring new EIPs related to blob management and verification.
- Integrated Scaling Solutions: Ensuring that Layer 1 execution scaling and data availability scaling efforts are developed in tandem, creating a synergistic effect that benefits the entire ecosystem. This cross-pollination of ideas and code will foster a more robust and efficient scaling strategy.
Improve UX: Native Account Abstraction and Seamless Interoperability
The "Improve UX" track, led by Barnabé Monnot and Matt Garnett, builds upon the momentum of the previous year’s initiatives, with a sharpened focus on two high-leverage areas crucial for Ethereum’s usability in 2026: native account abstraction and enhanced interoperability.
The journey towards account abstraction began with EIP-7702, a significant step that introduced temporary smart contract execution for EOAs. However, the ultimate goal is to establish smart contract wallets as the default account type, eliminating the need for intermediaries like bundlers and relayers, and reducing extraneous gas overhead. Proposals such as EIP-7701 and the more recent EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions) are driving this vision by embedding smart account logic directly into the protocol. This fundamental shift promises to revolutionize how users interact with Ethereum, offering greater flexibility, enhanced security, and improved recovery mechanisms.
A critical intersection for native account abstraction lies in post-quantum readiness. As the digital landscape evolves towards quantum-resistant cryptography, native AA provides a natural migration path away from the current ECDSA-based authentication. Complementary to this, ongoing research into proposals that could significantly improve the gas efficiency of verifying quantum-resistant signatures within the EVM is a key priority.
On the interoperability front, the "Improve UX" track is actively building on the foundation established by the Open Intents Framework. The overarching objective remains to facilitate seamless, trust-minimized cross-Layer 2 (L2) interactions. This ambitious goal is being advanced through continued progress on faster L1 confirmations and reduced L2 settlement times, both of which are critical enablers of fluid inter-rollup communication. The development of standards like ERC-7930 + ERC-7828 and ERC-7888 is crucial for creating a cohesive and interconnected multi-chain future for Ethereum.
Harden the L1: Ensuring Security and Resilience
A notable addition to the strategic framework is the "Harden the L1" track, led by Fredrik Svantes, Parithosh Jayanthi, and Thomas Thiery. This new track underscores a critical commitment: ensuring that as Ethereum scales and evolves, it retains and enhances the fundamental properties that define its value proposition – security, decentralization, and censorship resistance.
This track will encompass several vital areas:
- Censorship Resistance: Developing mechanisms and protocol-level features to mitigate censorship and ensure that the network remains open and accessible to all participants, regardless of external pressures. This could involve research into more robust mechanisms for transaction inclusion and validation.
- Post-Quantum Security: Actively preparing Ethereum for the advent of quantum computing by researching and implementing quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms for signatures and other critical components of the protocol. This proactive approach is essential for safeguarding the network’s long-term security.
- Consensus Layer Robustness: Continuously evaluating and improving the security and decentralization of the consensus layer, ensuring its resilience against various attack vectors and maintaining its core principles. This includes ongoing research into consensus mechanisms and validator economics.
- Client Diversity and Resilience: Promoting and supporting diversity across Ethereum’s client implementations to prevent single points of failure and enhance overall network resilience. This involves fostering a healthy ecosystem of independent client development.
- Economic Security: Continuously analyzing and reinforcing the economic security of the network, ensuring that staking mechanisms and incentive structures remain robust and aligned with the long-term health of Ethereum.
Looking Ahead: The Glamsterdam and Hegotà Upgrades
The roadmap for 2026 is ambitious, with two major network upgrades slated for deployment. "Glamsterdam" is targeted for the first half of the year, followed by "Hegotà" later in 2026. These upgrades are designed to be transformative, incorporating parallel execution, significantly higher gas limits, enshrined proposer-builder separation (PBS), continued blob scaling, and advancements in censorship resistance, native account abstraction, and post-quantum security.
The Ethereum Foundation has pledged to continue its practice of publishing regular track-level updates, providing transparency and opportunities for community engagement. The protocol.ethereum.foundation website remains the central hub for those seeking to follow developments or get involved in the ongoing evolution of the Ethereum protocol. The overarching sentiment is one of continued progress and a collective drive to "keep shipping," reinforcing Ethereum’s position as a leading blockchain platform and a catalyst for decentralized innovation.
