What’s on the Ethereum Roadmap: Glamsterdam, Hegota and Beyond

Like all blockchain initiatives, Ethereum is below energetic growth, with upgrades designed to make it sooner, cheaper, and simpler to make use of.

As an alternative of a single “Ethereum 2.0” occasion, the community upgrades by coordinated modifications referred to as laborious forks that introduce new options or modify how the protocol operates.

Since the Merge in September 2022, builders have centered on scaling, decreasing transaction prices, bettering wallets, and making it simpler to run nodes and validators. The Ethereum neighborhood can also be aiming for roughly two main upgrades per yr when analysis and testing are prepared.

Ethereum’s rollup-focused scaling technique

Ethereum’s scaling plan depends on layer-2 networks. These are separate blockchains constructed on prime of Ethereum that course of transactions off-chain and ship outcomes again to Ethereum for safety and settlement.

Many layer-2 programs use rollups, which bundle a number of transactions collectively and put up them to Ethereum as a single batch, permitting Ethereum to assist extra exercise with out the base chain processing each transaction.

Consequently, a lot of Ethereum’s growth now focuses on making it cheaper and simpler for rollups to make use of the community.

The six phases of the Ethereum roadmap

In July 2022, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin described the community’s six roadmap phases as the Merge, the Surge, the Scourge, the Verge, the Purge, and the Splurge.

These phases aren’t single upgrades however broad targets, and a number of progress in parallel.

• The Merge: Accomplished. Ethereum moved from mining to staking, chopping vitality use by roughly 99.95%.
• The Surge: Ongoing. Centered on scaling Ethereum so rollups can course of extra transactions at decrease value.
• The Scourge: Ongoing. Centered on lowering the affect of intermediaries in block manufacturing and addressing maximal extractable worth (MEV).
• The Verge: Ongoing. Goals to introduce Verkle Timber and associated modifications to scale back useful resource necessities for verifying Ethereum’s state.
• The Purge: Ongoing. Centered on pruning previous knowledge and simplifying the protocol to make Ethereum simpler to keep up.
• The Splurge: A set of smaller enhancements and long-term upgrades that improve usability and effectivity.

Timeline of Ethereum upgrades

Ethereum’s roadmap is carried out by a collection of laborious forks.

Accomplished upgrades

• September 2022 — The Merge: Ethereum transitioned from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, lowering vitality use by about 99.95%. Validators now lock up ETH to safe the community. The improve modified Ethereum’s safety mechanism however didn’t immediately decrease charges or improve transaction pace.
• April 2023 — Shanghai/Shapella: Shapella enabled validator withdrawals. Early validators had locked ETH for years with no withdrawal choice. The improve launched partial withdrawals and full exits.
• March 2024 — Dencun: Dencun launched proto-danksharding (EIP-4844). It added non permanent “blob” storage, creating cheaper house for rollup knowledge so it not competes with regular transactions for block house. This considerably diminished prices for a lot of layer-2 networks.
• Could 2025 — Pectra: Pectra mixed the “Prague” (execution) and “Electra” (consensus) upgrades. Pockets modifications equivalent to EIP-7702 enable customary wallets to behave like good accounts in some circumstances, enabling options like batching actions into one transaction or delegating gasoline cost. The improve additionally raised the most efficient stake per validator from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, letting massive operators consolidate into fewer validators, which some worry may improve focus. Pectra additionally elevated Ethereum’s capability to deal with rollup knowledge.
• December 2025 — Fusaka: Ethereum’s Fusaka laborious fork (brief for Fulu-Osaka) activated on mainnet in early December 2025 and centered on knowledge availability, together with Peer Information Availability Sampling (PeerDAS), which lets validators confirm small samples of rollup knowledge as an alternative of downloading all of it. This helps extra rollup knowledge per block with out requiring way more highly effective {hardware} and is paired with larger knowledge capability at the protocol degree.

Deliberate and upcoming upgrades

• First half of 2026 — Glamsterdam (focused): Core builders are focusing on a mid-2026 improve referred to as Glamsterdam as a part of Ethereum’s roughly twice-yearly fork cycle, although timing may change. The improve focuses on scaling the base layer by enabling extra parallel transaction execution by block-level entry lists and by integrating proposer-builder separation (ePBS) immediately into the protocol to enhance block constructing and throughput. The improve can also be anticipated to regulate the value of state storage to mirror {hardware} calls for higher and cut back long-term database progress. Extra proposals embody validator rule modifications, decrease ETH switch charges, improved transaction logging, and deterministic contract addresses throughout chains. Node operators and stakers might want to replace their shoppers to assist the fork.
• Second half of 2026 — Hegota: The Hegota improve is slated for the second half of 2026, although the closing scope remains to be being outlined. A key aim is adopting Verkle Timber, which permit nodes to confirm blockchain knowledge with a lot smaller proofs and cut back state storage necessities. This may transfer Ethereum nearer to a extra stateless design, decreasing {hardware} calls for and making it simpler to run a node. Builders are additionally working on upgrades equivalent to Fork-choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL), geared toward strengthening censorship resistance, and smart-account–centered modifications (together with frame-style transactions) that will allow options like gasoline sponsorship and social restoration as soon as the underlying proposals are finalized.

Improve names and scopes can change throughout growth as proposals are refined earlier than every laborious fork.

What Ethereum’s upgrades purpose to attain

Ethereum’s roadmap continues to evolve as analysis progresses and upgrades are examined on devnets and testnets earlier than mainnet deployment.

This information can be up to date as new milestones are confirmed.