Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap centers around two tracks: expanding rollup data capacity with blobs and improving base layer execution with changes to gas limits.
These gas limit changes rely on the validator moving from re-running the block to validating the ZK proof of execution.
The first truck has already been anchored by Fusaka and will be shipped on December 3, 2025.
Fusaka
According to ethereum.org, Fusaka can configure PeerDAS and BLOB parameters only (BPO) changes to improve BLOB throughput in measured steps.
The second track is less mechanized as it relies on draft EIPs, client implementations, and validator operations that must fit within decentralization constraints such as bandwidth, block propagation, and proof of market structure.
PeerDAS is positioned as the most obvious “capacity increase” lever because it is designed to scale the availability of rollup data without forcing every node to download every blob.
According to ethereum.org, BLOB targets will not jump immediately upon activation and may double every few weeks to a maximum of 48 targets as developers monitor the health of the network.
According to optimism.io, the team at Optimism has combined the upper-case with “a goal of at least 48 blobs per block” to increase the throughput on the rollup side from about 220 to about 3,500 UOPS under that goal.
Even within that framework, the practical question in 2026 is whether demand will arrive as a BLOB usage rather than bidding L1 execution.
Another open question is whether p2p stability and node bandwidth will remain within operators' tolerances as BPOs expand their deployments.
On the execution side, Ethereum is already testing higher throughput through throttling rather than hard forks.
GasLimit.pics reported that the latest gas limit was 60,000,000 and the 24-hour average at the time of display was approximately 59,990,755.
This level is important because it provides a reference point for what the validator actually accepted.
It also reveals the upper bounds of “social scaling” before latency, validation load, and mempool and MEV pipeline burdens become binding.
A simple way to convert gas limit talk to throughput range is gas per second using Ethereum's 12 second slot time (gas per second is equal to gas limit divided by 12).
The numbers below clarify the calculations and separate base layer EVM transactions from rollup throughput requirements.
| scenario | gas limit | gas/second (≈ gas/12) | 21k gas transmissions/sec | 120k transmission/sec on gas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current adjustment level | 60,000,000 | 5,000,000 | ≈238 | ≈42 |
| 2 x Gas limit case | 120,000,000 | 10,000,000 | ≈476 | ≈83 |
| High-end case (validation changes required) | 200 million | 16,666,667 | ≈793 | ≈139 |
glamsterdam
The planned 2026 upgrade brand incorporates several execution-oriented ideas into the “Gramsteldam.” This is an abbreviated version of the discussion that focuses on proposer-builder separation (ePBS, EIP-7732), block-level access lists (BAL, EIP-7928), and general pricing (EIP-7904).
According to the EIP pages for EIP-7732, EIP-7928, and EIP-7904, each remains in draft.
The repricing targets gas schedule discrepancies that have been going on for years.
EIP-7904 argues that correcting compute mispricing can increase available throughput while recognizing the reality of contracts that hard-code DoS risks and gas assumptions.
BAL is framed as plumbing for parallel processing.
According to EIP-7928, EIP estimates the average size of a compressed BAL to be approximately 70-72 KiB of overhead, citing parallel disk reads, parallel transaction validation, parallel state root computation, and “execution-free state updates.”
In reality, these benefits are only realized if clients embrace concurrency beyond their actual bottlenecks.
It also depends on whether additional data and validation steps can be avoided from becoming a late tax of their own.
According to EIP-7732, ePBS is at the center of both MEV and throughput discussions because it aims to separate execution verification from consensus verification in time.
This temporary margin is also where new failure modes can emerge.
According to arXiv, an academic paper on ePBS's “free option problem” estimates that option exercise averages about 0.82% of blocks in an 8-second option window, reaching about 6% on high-volatility days under modeled conditions.
Ethereum in 2026
With plans for 2026, this research will focus not only on steady-state pricing outcomes, but also on life under stress.
A more structural bet behind the “very high” gas limit is the adoption of validator ZK proofs.
The Ethereum Foundation’s “Real-Time Proof” roadmap describes a step-by-step path for a small set of validators to first run the ZK client in production.
According to the Foundation's July 10, 2025 post on blog.ethereum.org, gas limits may then be increased to a level where proof verification replaces re-runs for practical verification on reasonable hardware, and only after a majority of stakeholders are satisfied.
According to blog.ethereum.org, the same post presents constraints that are more about feasibility than narrative, such as targeting 128-bit security (100 bits are also temporarily accepted), proof sizes less than 300 KiB, and avoiding dependencies on recursive wrappers with a reliable setup.
The implications of scaling are related to the certification market. Providing real-time proofs must be cheap and reliable without focusing on a narrow set of provers that recreates today's relay-style dependencies at another layer of the stack.
After Gramsterdam, “Hegota” is positioned as a named slot in late 2026, where process is more important than scope.
According to blog.ethereum.org, the Ethereum Foundation has published a timeline for the headliner, with a proposal period from January 8th to February 4th, followed by discussion and finalization from February 5th to February 26th, and a non-headliner period.
The Hegotá Meta EIP exists as a draft (EIP-8081), and EIP-8081 lists items that are considered rather than locked, including FOCIL (EIP-7805), which is currently being considered.
The short-term reporting value of this schedule is that it creates dated decision points that investors and builders can track without inferring commitments from code names.
First, Hegota's headliner proposals close on February 4th.
