Ethereum’s Glamsterdam Upgrade: What to Expect in 2026

Ethereum (ETH) continues to evolve through a steady cadence of protocol upgrades aimed at improving scalability, decentralization, and economic fairness. After the successful rollout of Pectra (May 2025)—which introduced major account abstraction enhancements—and Fusaka (December 2025)—which expanded blob capacity and raised gas limits—the spotlight now turns to Glamsterdam, Ethereum’s flagship hard fork planned for 2026.

Glamsterdam represents a convergence of execution-layer and consensus-layer improvements, reinforcing Ethereum’s long-term roadmap while responding to real-world usage demands from DeFi, stablecoins, gaming, and institutional applications.

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Context: Building on Pectra and Fusaka

Before diving into Glamsterdam, it’s important to understand the foundation laid by prior upgrades:

• Pectra (2025)

  • Expanded account abstraction capabilities
  • Improved smart wallet UX and security
  • Reduced friction for onboarding new users and institutions

• Fusaka (2025)

  • Increased blob throughput for rollups
  • Introduced PeerDAS refinements
  • Enabled higher data availability without bloating the base layer

Together, these upgrades significantly lowered L2 costs and improved Ethereum’s role as a settlement and data availability layer.

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What Is Glamsterdam?

Glamsterdam is expected to be a major protocol milestone, combining efficiency gains, fairness mechanisms, and cryptographic advances. While final specifications are still being refined, several core features are already central to discussions among Ethereum core developers.

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Key Features Under Discussion

1. Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS)

One of the most anticipated components of Glamsterdam is ePBS, which aims to formalize proposer-builder separation directly into the protocol.

Why it matters:

• Reduces centralized MEV extraction
• Improves fairness for validators and users
• Lowers reliance on off-chain relays
• Enhances censorship resistance

By enshrining PBS at the protocol level, Ethereum moves closer to a neutral and transparent block production process, aligning incentives across the network.

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2. Parallel Transaction Processing

Ethereum has traditionally processed transactions sequentially, which limits throughput even when hardware resources are underutilized.

Glamsterdam may introduce:

• Parallel execution paths
• Better state access isolation
• Improved utilization of modern multi-core systems

Expected impact:

• Higher transactions per second (TPS)
• Lower latency during peak demand
• Smoother performance for complex DeFi and gaming applications

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3. Zero-Knowledge Proof Integration

Zero-knowledge (ZK) technology is expected to play a larger role at the base layer:

• Improved verification efficiency
• Reduced computation overhead
• Stronger privacy and compression guarantees

These advancements complement rollups while positioning Ethereum for future ZK-native execution environments.

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Scalability Outlook: Beyond Fusaka

Glamsterdam builds directly on Fusaka’s PeerDAS and blob enhancements, pushing Ethereum closer to its long-term goal of massive scalability via rollups.

Projected outcomes include:

• Significantly higher rollup throughput
• Lower L2 transaction fees
• Better support for enterprise-scale applications
• Reduced congestion during market volatility

Ethereum’s strategy remains clear: scale via L2s, secure via L1.

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Market Perspective: ETH in Early 2026

As of early February 2026:

• ETH price: ~$2,200–$2,300
• Market capitalization: ~$300B+

While ETH has experienced recent volatility alongside broader crypto markets, its fundamentals remain strong:

• Dominant platform for DeFi and stablecoins
• Primary settlement layer for rollups
• Increasing institutional experimentation
• Deep developer ecosystem and tooling moat

Upgrades like Glamsterdam reinforce Ethereum’s value proposition as the programmable trust layer of the internet.

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Looking Ahead: The Hegota Upgrade

Following Glamsterdam, Ethereum plans to maintain its twice-yearly upgrade cadence with Hegota, expected in late 2026.

Hegota is likely to focus on:

• Long-term scalability refinements
• Enhanced censorship resistance
• Validator decentralization improvements
• Continued cryptographic optimization

This predictable roadmap reduces uncertainty for developers and enterprises building on Ethereum.

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Conclusion

Glamsterdam is shaping up to be one of Ethereum’s most consequential upgrades since the Merge-era transition to proof-of-stake. By addressing MEV fairness, execution efficiency, and cryptographic scalability, it positions Ethereum to meet growing global demand without sacrificing decentralization.

Despite short-term price fluctuations, Ethereum’s technological trajectory in 2026 underscores its role as the leading smart contract platform—not just for crypto-native users, but for the next generation of financial and institutional infrastructure.