Ethereum's major upgrade in 2026: How will Glamsterdam and Hegota forks reshape the crypto ecosystem?

The Ethereum development community has officially confirmed two major network upgrades in 2026—Glamsterdam and Hegota forks. These upgrades not only continue Ethereum’s tradition of two fixed upgrades per year but also mark a new phase in the network’s scaling strategy shifting from “comprehensive expansion” to “targeted optimization.”

The Glamsterdam fork is expected to be implemented in the first half of 2026, introducing parallel processing mechanisms to the Ethereum mainnet for the first time, and increasing the Gas limit to 200 million, more than three times the current level.

01 Upgrade Background and Strategic Shift

Ethereum’s evolution has never stopped. In November 2025, Vitalik Buterin explicitly stated that Ethereum would bid farewell to the old model of “scaling everything simultaneously” and enter a new cycle of “targeted optimization.”

The core of this strategic shift is to improve the overall performance of the blockchain through more targeted interventions without increasing validator burden.

According to Vitalik’s vision, the block Gas limit on Ethereum in 2026 is expected to increase by 5 times, and the Gas costs for relatively inefficient operations will also increase fivefold.

This “incentive redistribution” model aims to penalize activities of overloaded nodes while encouraging developers and protocols to adopt more efficient practices.

02 Glamsterdam Fork: The Revolution of Parallel Processing

As the first upgrade in 2026, the Glamsterdam fork continues the Ethereum tradition of naming after the host city of Devcon. The key breakthrough of this upgrade is the introduction of a parallel processing architecture, enabling Ethereum to break free from the limitations of single-threaded sequential processing.

Currently, the Gas limit per Ethereum block is about 60 million, and Glamsterdam plans to significantly raise it to 200 million.

This change will directly impact transaction processing capacity. Coupled with the parallel processing mechanism, the network can exponentially increase its processing ability while maintaining validator entry thresholds. This means traders will be able to execute complex strategies such as atomic swaps, flash loans, and multi-leg arbitrage more precisely.

The increase in Gas limit also directly affects the Layer 2 ecosystem. Lower transaction costs on the main chain make batch settlements in Layer 2 protocols like Arbitrum, Optimism, Starknet, etc., more cost-effective.

03 Hegota Fork: Optimization of State Efficiency

Following closely, the Hegota fork is expected to be implemented in the second half of 2026. Its name combines the execution layer “Bogota” and the consensus layer star “Heze.” The core task of this upgrade is to address the long-standing issue of state bloat that has plagued Ethereum.

State bloat refers to the phenomenon where the state database continuously expands due to accumulated transaction and contract data. Hegota plans to introduce a state expiration mechanism, archiving or pruning outdated and rarely accessed data, significantly lowering the storage requirements for full nodes.

This upgrade is especially important for developers. Improving state efficiency means reducing storage costs, and state management will no longer be the main burden of application development. Developers building dApps will have more architectural freedom without sacrificing application functionality or user experience to optimize Gas costs.

04 Technological Innovation and Ecosystem Impact

The technological breakthroughs of Glamsterdam and Hegota forks are not only about feature enhancements but also about how they address Ethereum’s scalability trilemma—balancing decentralization, security, and throughput.

The parallel processing architecture executes multiple transactions synchronously, allowing validators and nodes to handle larger computational loads even with varying hardware resources.

This design reduces centralization risks, enhances network security, and ensures accessibility for institutional participants.

From an ecosystem perspective, the combination of these two forks creates a comprehensive, sustainable solution for Ethereum’s long-term development. Unlike relying solely on Layer 2 scaling solutions, this strategy focuses on improving Layer 1 efficiency, preserving Ethereum’s renowned security and composability.

05 Future Outlook and Market Opportunities

The 2026 Ethereum scaling roadmap opens up new opportunities for the entire crypto ecosystem. For Web3 investors, the parallel processing architecture reduces centralization risks, and the operational costs for individual nodes and validators become more reasonable.

Staking economics will be further optimized due to increased throughput, attracting more capital into the consensus layer. As validator thresholds lower and reward models improve, ETH staking rates are expected to rise from the current approximately 25% to over 40%, further reducing circulating ETH supply.

Technological advancements also create new market opportunities. Increased Layer 1 throughput means higher transaction volumes, bringing greater MEV (Miner Extractable Value) opportunities, benefiting validators and liquidity providers.

Meanwhile, the shrinking cost gap between Layer 1 and Layer 2 creates arbitrage opportunities for savvy investors.

Future Outlook

The plan to raise Ethereum’s Gas limit from the current 60 million to 200 million has been finalized. The developer community plans to finalize the technical specifications of the Glamsterdam fork before January 2026.

As network throughput bottlenecks are broken, on-chain applications previously limited by high Gas fees—such as blockchain gaming, high-frequency trading, and real-time AI inference—are poised to be activated.

Ethereum is redefining its boundaries, and the Glamsterdam and Hegota forks are key milestones on this evolutionary path. When parallel processing becomes the norm and state bloat becomes history, Ethereum will no longer be just the “world computer,” but a truly decentralized financial infrastructure capable of supporting global value.