Ethereum Foundation Reorganizes Its Protocol Work Into Three Tracks for 2026, Eyes 100M+ Gas Limit

The Ethereum Foundation folded its protocol roadmap into "Scale," "Improve UX," and a new "Harden the L1" track, setting up the Glamsterdam upgrade for the first half of 2026.

The Ethereum Foundation published its 2026 protocol priorities on February 18, restructuring the "Protocol" org it launched in June 2025 (Ethereum Foundation blog). The three prior initiatives — Scale L1, Scale Blobs, Improve UX — become three new tracks: Scale (Ansgar Dietrichs, Marius van der Wijden, Raúl Kripalani), which merges the two scaling efforts; Improve UX (Barnabé Monnot, Matt Garnett); and a new Harden the L1 track (Fredrik Svantes, Parithosh Jayanthi, Thomas Thiery) focused on security, censorship resistance, and testing.

The post also recapped 2025's two mainnet upgrades. Pectra shipped in May 2025, delivering EIP-7702 (letting externally-owned accounts temporarily run contract code for batching, gas sponsorship and social recovery), doubling blob throughput, and raising the max effective validator balance to 2,048 ETH. Fusaka followed in December 2025, bringing PeerDAS — validators sample blob data instead of downloading it in full — which the Foundation says enables an "8x increase in theoretical blob capacity," alongside two Blob Parameter Only forks ramping up from 6 blobs per block. The community also raised the mainnet gas limit from 30M to 60M, described as the first significant increase since 2021.

For 2026, the Scale track aims to push the gas limit "toward and beyond 100M" (via EIP-7928 Block-level Access Lists and benchmarking) and deliver Glamsterdam's scaling pieces, including enshrined proposer-builder separation (EIP-7732). The next upgrade, Glamsterdam, is targeted for the first half of 2026, with Hegotá planned later in the year.

Key facts

• Roadmap reorganized into Scale, Improve UX, Harden the L1 — EF blog, 2026-02-18.
• Pectra: mainnet May 2025, EIP-7702, blob throughput doubled, 2,048 ETH max validator balance — EF blog.
• Fusaka: mainnet December 2025, PeerDAS, "8x theoretical blob capacity," 2 BPO forks — EF blog.
• Gas limit raised 30M → 60M; 2026 target "beyond 100M" — EF blog.
• Glamsterdam targeted H1 2026 (ePBS/EIP-7732); Hegotá later in 2026 — EF blog.

The real-world read

This is a governance/comms update from a single interested party — Ethereum's own foundation — describing its own priorities, so read the framing accordingly. Note the vintage: it was published February 18, and we're flagging it in July, so "targeted for the first half of 2026" is now a deadline that is up against the wire; the post makes no commitment on a specific Glamsterdam date and this update doesn't confirm it shipped. The capacity numbers are the Foundation's own: the "8x" blob increase and "beyond 100M" gas limit are explicitly theoretical and targets, not delivered throughput — the actual on-chain gas limit is set by validators over time, as the 30M→60M ramp shows. EIP numbers like ePBS (7732) and 7702 are the aspiration, not proof of shipping. We have only this one source here, so nothing above is corroborated by independent reporting or on-chain data.

Opinion, and whose

The Foundation frames 2025 as "one of Ethereum's most productive years at the protocol level" and signs off "Let's keep shipping" — its own characterization, not a neutral assessment.

Sources

• Ethereum Foundation blog, "Protocol Priorities Update for 2026" (2026-02-18) — primary/anchor source for all figures, names, dates, EIPs and upgrade plans. First-party organizational communication: not sponsored, but self-reported and self-promotional in tone; targets and capacity figures are the Foundation's own.

This is informational reporting, not financial advice.