Ethereum 2026: Interpreting EF's latest protocol roadmap and officially entering the "engineering upgrade" era?

On February 18th, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) released the “Protocol Priorities Update for 2026.” Compared to previous fragmented updates centered around EIPs, this roadmap resembles a strategic schedule, clarifying the upgrade pace, priority allocation, and the three main themes that the protocol layer will focus on over the next year: Scale, Improve UX, Harden the L1.

Behind this, from the successful delivery of two hard forks in 2025 (Pectra/Fusaka) to the early planning of dual main lines for Glamsterdam and Hegotá in 2026, we see a deep shift toward “predictable engineering delivery” in Ethereum development. This may be the most significant protocol signal in recent years.

1. Ethereum in 2025: Turmoil and Institutionalization Coexist

If you follow Ethereum closely, you’ll know that 2025 is a year of contradictions for the protocol. ETH prices may hover low, but the protocol layer has undergone unprecedented dense transformations.

Especially in early 2025, Ethereum experienced a rather tumultuous period, with EF at the center of a storm of public opinion—community criticism was loud, and some even called for a “wartime CEO” to push reforms. Ultimately, a series of internal power struggles became public, leading to the highest-level leadership restructuring since EF’s founding:

• In February, Executive Director Aya Miyaguchi was promoted to President, with Vitalik Buterin pledging to overhaul the leadership;
• Subsequently, Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz K. Stańczak took on joint executive director roles;
• A new marketing narrative organization, Etherealize, led by former researcher Danny Ryan, was established;
• EF further restructured its board and clarified its commitment to cypherpunk values;
• By mid-year, the foundation reorganized its R&D department, consolidating teams and adjusting personnel to focus on core protocol priorities;

This combination proved effective—Ethereum’s execution capability significantly strengthened. Notably, just seven months after the Pectra upgrade in May, the successful deployment of Fusaka at year’s end demonstrated that EF, despite major leadership changes, still has the capacity to push major updates. It also marked Ethereum’s entry into an accelerated development rhythm of “two hard forks per year.”

Since the network’s switch to PoS via The Merge in September 2022, Ethereum has generally targeted one major upgrade annually, such as the Shapella upgrade in April 2023 and the Dencun upgrade in March 2024: the former enabling staked ETH withdrawals, a key step in PoS transition; the latter introducing EIP-4844, opening the Blob data channel, significantly reducing L2 costs.

In 2025, two major hard forks—Pectra and Fusaka—were completed. More importantly, 2025 marked the first systematic planning of the next two years’ upgrades, Glamsterdam and Hegotá.

Although not explicitly mandated, interestingly, at the end of last year, The Block cited sources from Consensys stating that since The Merge, Ethereum researchers aimed for one major upgrade per year. Now, they are planning to “accelerate the release cycle of hard forks to twice a year,” and openly acknowledged that Fusaka initiated a cycle of two upgrades annually.

This “institutionalization” of the upgrade rhythm is quite milestone-worthy. The reason is simple: previously, the release schedule depended heavily on development readiness, making the window unpredictable for developers and infrastructure providers. Those familiar know delays are common.

This also means that the successful delivery of two major upgrades in 2025 validates the feasibility of “upgrades twice a year.” The first systematic planning of two named upgrades in 2026 (Glamsterdam and Hegotá), along with the prioritization of three development tracks around these milestones, further institutionalizes this process.

In theory, this resembles the release cadence of Apple or Android systems, aiming to reduce developer uncertainty and bring three positive effects: increased predictability for L2 (e.g., Rollup parameter planning and protocol adaptation), clearer windows for wallet and infrastructure compatibility, and stable risk assessment cycles for institutions—meaning upgrades are no longer surprises but routine engineering work.

This structured rhythm reflects engineering management and highlights Ethereum’s shift from research exploration to engineering delivery.

2. The “Three Pillars” of Protocol Development in 2026

Looking closely at the 2026 protocol priority update, EF no longer simply lists scattered EIPs but reorganizes protocol development into three strategic directions: Scale (expansion), Improve UX (user experience), and Harden the L1 (security and neutrality).

First, Scale combines the previous “Scale L1” and “Scale blobs” initiatives because EF recognizes that L1 execution layer scaling and data availability layer expansion are two sides of the same coin.

In the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade in the first half of the year, the most notable technology is “Block-level Access Lists,” which aims to fundamentally change Ethereum’s current transaction execution model—think of shifting from a sequential “single-lane” process to parallel “multi-lane” processing:

• Block producers will precompute and mark which transactions can run concurrently without conflicts. Clients can then allocate transactions across multiple CPU cores for parallel processing, greatly improving efficiency.
• Meanwhile, ePBS (Embedded proposer-builder separation) will be included in the upgrade. It embeds the current reliance on external relays for MEV-Boost into the protocol itself, reducing centralization risks and providing more time for validators to verify ZK proofs.

Alongside these low-level optimizations, the Gas limit race in 2026 is expected to intensify. EF has set a target of “surpassing 100 million” in gas limit, with some optimists predicting it could double to 200 million or more after ePBS. For L2, increasing blob counts per block—up to over 72—will support tens of thousands of transactions per second on L2 networks.

Second, Improve UX aims to eliminate cross-chain barriers, promote cross-chain interoperability, and enable native account abstraction. As mentioned earlier, EF believes solving L2 fragmentation hinges on making Ethereum “feel like a single chain,” relying on mature intent architecture.

For example, the Open Intents Framework, launched by EF in collaboration with multiple teams, is becoming a universal standard. It allows users to transfer assets across L2s by simply declaring “desired results,” with the underlying solver network calculating complex paths (see “When ‘Intent’ Becomes Standard: How OIF Ends Cross-Chain Fragmentation and Returns Web3 to User Intuition”). Further, the Ethereum Interoperability Layer (EIL) aims to build a trustless transmission layer, enabling cross-L2 transactions to have the same experience as single-chain transactions (see “Ethereum Interop Roadmap: Unlocking the ‘Last Mile’ for Large-Scale Adoption”).

At the wallet level, native account abstraction remains a key focus. After the first step with EIP-7702 in Pectra 2025, EF plans to push proposals like EIP-7701 or EIP-8141 in 2026, with the goal of making every wallet on Ethereum a smart contract wallet, eliminating complex EOA wallets and third-party gas relayers.

Additionally, implementing fast confirmation rules for L1 will drastically reduce confirmation times from 13-19 minutes to 15-30 seconds, directly benefiting cross-chain applications relying on L1 finality—crucial for bridges, stablecoin settlements, and RWA asset trading.

Finally, Harden the L1 targets trillion-dollar security defenses, driven by the increasing value locked in the Ethereum ecosystem.

In terms of censorship resistance, FOCIL (Fork Choice Inclusion List, EIP-7805) is becoming a core solution. It grants multiple validators the power to enforce inclusion of specific transactions, ensuring that even if block producers attempt censorship, honest nodes will see the transactions included on-chain.

Facing the long-term threat of quantum computing, EF has assembled a post-quantum (PQ) research team early this year. In 2026, work will focus on studying quantum-resistant signature algorithms and exploring seamless migration strategies to the mainnet, safeguarding assets worth billions against future quantum attacks.

3. Ethereum Moving Toward “Collaboration”

Overall, if we had to summarize 2026 for Ethereum in one word, it might be “collaboration.”

The upgrades will no longer revolve around explosive innovations but will advance along three main tracks: Scale for throughput and cost; Improve UX for usability and adoption; Harden the L1 for security and neutrality. These three jointly determine whether Ethereum can support the next decade of on-chain economy.

More than the technical roadmap, what’s more revealing is the strategic shift reflected by this “three-track” structure.

As mentioned earlier, when the Fusaka upgrade completes at the end of 2025 and the rhythm of two hard forks per year is established, Ethereum effectively completes a “systematization” of its development model. The roadmap released in early 2026 further extends this institutionalization into the realm of technical planning—previously, upgrades often centered around a “star proposal” (like EIP-1559, Merge, EIP-4844). Now, upgrades are no longer driven by individual proposals but by the coordinated progress of three tracks.

From a macro perspective, 2026 is also a pivotal year for Ethereum’s “value narrative” reconstruction. In recent years, market valuation has largely been based on “L2 expansion and fee growth.” But as mainnet performance improves and L2 shifts from “sharding” to “trust spectrum,” Ethereum’s core value is being re-anchored as “the most secure settlement layer globally.”

What does this mean? Simply put, Ethereum is transitioning from a platform relying on “transaction fee revenue” to an asset anchored by “security premium.” This shift could have profound implications over the coming years—when stablecoin issuers, RWA tokenization firms, and sovereign wealth funds choose a settlement layer, they will prioritize security over cost.

Ethereum is transforming from a “tech experiment” into an “engineering delivery platform.” The institutionalization of protocol governance may truly mature in 2026.

We may also be at a fascinating node: as underlying technologies grow more complex (parallel execution, PQ algorithms), user experience becomes simpler. The maturation of account abstraction and intent frameworks is pushing Ethereum toward that ideal endpoint—making Web3 intuitive for users.

If achieved, 2026 could see Ethereum evolve from a blockchain experiment into a global financial backbone capable of supporting trillions in assets, with users unaware of the underlying protocols.