Ethereum 2026: Deciphering the EF's Latest Protocol Roadmap, Officially Entering the Era of "Engineering Upgrades"?

On February 18th, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) released the "Protocol Priorities Update for 2026." Compared to previous fragmented updates centered around EIPs, this roadmap more closely resembles a strategic schedule, clarifying the upgrade cadence, priority allocation, and the three main themes that the protocol layer will revolve around in the coming year: Scale, Improve UX, and Harden the L1.

Behind this, from the successful delivery of two hard forks (Pectra/Fusaka) in 2025 to the advanced planning of the dual mainline upgrades Glamsterdam and Hegotá for 2026, we are witnessing a deeper shift in Ethereum development towards "predictable engineering delivery." This might just be the most important protocol layer signal in recent years.

I. Ethereum in 2025: Parallel Paths of Turbulence and Institutionalization

If you've been following Ethereum closely, you'll know that 2025 was a year of contradictions for the protocol. While the ETH price may have lingered at low levels, the protocol layer underwent unprecedented, intensive changes.

Especially in early 2025, Ethereum went through a rather awkward period. The EF found itself at the center of a public opinion storm—community criticism surged, with some even calling for the introduction of a so-called "wartime CEO" to drive change. Ultimately, a series of internal power struggles became public, forcing the most significant leadership reshuffle since the EF's founding:

• In February, Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi was promoted to President, with Vitalik Buterin committing to restructuring the leadership;
• Subsequently, Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz K. Stańczak were appointed as Co-Executive Directors;
• A new marketing and narrative agency, Etherealize, was established, led by former researcher Danny Ryan;
• Simultaneously, the EF further restructured its board, clarifying a commitment to cypherpunk values;
• By mid-year, the Foundation also reorganized its R&D department, integrating teams and adjusting personnel to ensure a focus on core protocol priorities.

It turns out that this combination of moves significantly hardened Ethereum's execution capabilities. Particularly noteworthy was the successful deployment of the Fusaka upgrade by year-end, just 7 months after the May Pectra upgrade. This proved that the EF, despite undergoing major leadership changes, retained the ability to push through significant updates, and marked Ethereum's formal entry into an accelerated development rhythm of "two hard forks per year."

After all, since the network transitioned to PoS with The Merge in September 2022, Ethereum had essentially aimed for only one major upgrade per year, such as the Shapella upgrade in April 2023 and the Dencun upgrade in March 2024: the former opened staking withdrawals, completing a key piece of the PoS transition; the latter implemented EIP-4844, formally launching the Blob data channel, which significantly reduced L2 costs.

In contrast, 2025 saw the completion of two major hard fork upgrades, Pectra and Fusaka. More crucially, 2025 saw the first systematic planning of named upgrades for the next two years: Glamsterdam and Hegotá.

While not officially codified, it's interesting to note that last year, The Block cited Consensys sources stating that since The Merge, Ethereum researchers had aimed for one major upgrade per year, but were now "planning to speed up the rollout of hard forks to twice a year," explicitly stating that Fusaka initiated Ethereum's twice-yearly upgrade cycle.

This "institutional" change regarding the upgrade cadence is quite a milestone. The reason is simple: previously, the release schedule depended more on R&D readiness. For developers and infrastructure providers, the expected window was unstable, and as those familiar know, delays were not uncommon.

This means that the successful delivery of two major upgrades in 2025 validated the feasibility of "upgrades every six months." The first systematic planning of two named upgrades (Glamsterdam and Hegotá) for 2026, with priority arrangements across three development tracks centered on these nodes, represents a further step in institutionalized implementation.

Theoretically, this is somewhat similar to the release cadence of Apple or Android systems, aiming to reduce uncertainty for developers. It is expected to bring three positive impacts: enhanced predictability for L2s, allowing Rollups to plan parameter adjustments and protocol adaptations in advance; clear adaptation windows for wallets and infrastructure, enabling product teams to plan compatibility and feature rollouts according to the schedule; and stable risk assessment cycles for institutions, as upgrades are no longer sudden events but an engineering norm.

This structured rhythm is essentially a manifestation of engineering management, also highlighting Ethereum's transition from research exploration to engineering delivery.

II. The "Three Pillars" of 2026 Protocol Development

Looking closely at the 2026 protocol priority update plan, one finds that the EF no longer simply lists scattered EIPs. Instead, it has reorganized protocol development into three strategic directions: Scale, Improve UX, and Harden the L1.

First is Scale, which merges the previous "Scale L1" and "Scale blobs," as the EF recognizes that scaling the L1 execution layer and widening the data availability layer are two sides of the same coin.

Therefore, in the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade scheduled for the first half of the year, the most eye-catching technology is "Block-level Access Lists," aiming to fundamentally change Ethereum's current transaction execution model—think of it as shifting from a sequentially processed "single lane" to a parallel-processed "multi-lane":

Block producers will pre-calculate and mark which transactions can run simultaneously without conflict, allowing clients to allocate transactions to multiple CPU cores for parallel processing, thereby greatly improving efficiency. Meanwhile, ePBS (embedded Proposer-Builder Separation) will also be included in the upgrade. It embeds the currently external-relay-dependent MEV-Boost process into the protocol itself, not only reducing centralization risks but also reserving a more ample time window for validators to verify ZK proofs.

Alongside these underlying optimizations, the race for the Gas limit will intensify in 2026. The EF has clearly stated its goal is to "move towards 100 million and beyond." More radical predictions suggest that after ePBS, the Gas limit could potentially double to 200 million or even higher. For L2s, the increase in blob count is equally crucial, with the number of data blobs per block expected to rise to 72 or more, supporting L2 networks in processing hundreds of thousands of transactions per second.

Second is Improve UX, aiming to eliminate cross-chain barriers and popularize cross-chain interoperability and native account abstraction. As mentioned earlier, the EF believes the core to solving L2 fragmentation lies in making Ethereum "feel like one chain again." This vision relies on the maturation of the intent architecture.

For example, the Open Intents Framework (OIF), launched by the EF in collaboration with several teams, is becoming a universal standard. It allows users to simply declare their "desired outcome" when transferring assets between L2s, while a network of solvers handles the complex path calculations (Further reading: When "Intents" Become Standard: How OIF Aims to End Cross-Chain Fragmentation and Return Web3 to User Intuition?). Going further, the Ethereum Interoperability Layer (EIL) attempts to build a trustless transport layer, aiming to make cross-L2 transactions feel indistinguishable from single-chain transactions (Further reading: Ethereum Interop Roadmap: How to Unlock the "Last Mile" for Mass Adoption).

At the wallet level, native account abstraction will remain a key focus this year. Following the first step taken with EIP-7702 in the 2025 Pectra upgrade, the EF plans to advance proposals like EIP-7701 or EIP-8141 in 2026. The ultimate goal is for every wallet on Ethereum to default to being a smart contract wallet, completely eliminating complex EOA wallets and additional Gas payment intermediaries.

Furthermore, the implementation of L1 fast finality rules will drastically reduce confirmation times from the current 13-19 minutes to 15-30 seconds. This will directly benefit all cross-chain applications relying on L1 finality, which is significant for cross-chain bridges, stablecoin settlements, and RWA asset trading.

Finally, Harden the L1 aims to fortify the trillion-dollar security line. This is also driven by the strategic elevation of L1 security resilience as the value locked in the Ethereum ecosystem continues to grow.

In terms of censorship resistance, FOCIL (Fork-Choice Inclusion List, EIP-7805) is becoming a core solution. It grants multiple validators the power to force the inclusion of specific transactions into a block. Even if a block producer attempts censorship, as long as a portion of the network is honest, the user's transaction will eventually be included on-chain.

Facing the long-term threat of quantum computing, the EF formed a new Post-Quantum (PQ) research team at the beginning of the year. Work in 2026 will focus on researching quantum-resistant signature algorithms and beginning to consider how to seamlessly migrate them to the Ethereum mainnet, ensuring the security of future multi-billion dollar assets is not threatened by quantum algorithm breakthroughs.

III. A More "Coordinated" Ethereum is Here

Overall, if one word were to summarize Ethereum in 2026, it might be "coordination."

Upgrades are no longer centered around a single explosive innovation but around the coordinated advancement of three main themes: Scale handles throughput and cost; Improve UX handles usability and adoption; Harden the L1 handles security and neutrality. Together, these three determine whether Ethereum can support the on-chain economy of the next decade.

At the same time, more noteworthy than the technical roadmap is the strategic shift reflected in this "three-track" structure.

As mentioned above, when the Fusaka upgrade was successfully completed at the end of 2025, establishing the twice-yearly hard fork rhythm, Ethereum essentially completed a "institutionalized" leap in its development model. The priority update released at the beginning of 2026 further extends this institutionalization to the planning level of technical direction—in the past, Ethereum upgrades often revolved around a single "star proposal" (like EIP-1559, The Merge, EIP-4844). Now, upgrades are no longer defined by a single proposal but by the coordinated advancement of three tracks.

From a more macro perspective, 2026 is also a crucial year for the reconstruction of Ethereum's "value narrative." In recent years, the market's pricing of Ethereum has largely revolved around "fee growth driven by L2 scaling." However, as mainnet performance improves and the positioning of L2s shifts from "sharding" to a "trust spectrum," Ethereum's core value is being re-anchored to its irreplaceable position as the "world's most secure settlement layer."

What does this mean? Simply put, Ethereum is transitioning from a platform reliant on "transaction fee revenue" to an asset anchor point reliant on a "security premium." The profound impact of this shift may gradually become apparent in the coming years—when stablecoin issuers, RWA tokenization institutions, and sovereign wealth funds choose a settlement layer, they are not choosing the cheapest network, but the most secure one.

Ethereum is tangibly evolving from a "technology testing ground" into an "engineering delivery platform." The institutionalization of Ethereum protocol governance may truly mature in 2026.

And we might be at a fascinating juncture: the underlying technology is becoming increasingly complex (e.g., parallel execution, PQ algorithms), but the user experience is becoming simpler. The maturation of account abstraction and intent frameworks is pushing Ethereum towards that ideal endpoint—returning Web3 to user intuition.

If this can truly be achieved, the Ethereum of 2026 might indeed transform from a blockchain experiment into a global financial base capable of supporting trillions of dollars in assets, where users don't need to understand the underlying protocol.