Developers: Major Ethereum Upgrade Progressing Faster Than Expected

Development of the highly anticipated “Glamsterdam” upgrade for Ethereum is accelerating, with mainnet deployment now expected in the first half of 2026.

In the latest technical report published by the Ethereum Foundation, core objectives of the upgrade are reported to be largely achieved.

Key Progress Achieved

According to developers, several major milestones have been completed:

• minimum consensus gas limit increased to 200 million;
• stable operation of ePBS (external block builder) ensured;
• parameters for EIP-8037 defined;
• most network clients are running reliably on testnets.

Timeline and Scale

The upgrade is expected to go live around June 2026.

It is considered the most significant performance upgrade since The Merge.

After implementation:

• block gas limit will increase from 60M to 200M;
• theoretical throughput may reach up to 10,000 transactions per second.

Architectural Changes

To balance increased load, major architectural improvements will be introduced:

• implementation of Verkle Trees;
• introduction of state expiry.

This will:

• allow removal of data older than one year from nodes;
• shift storage to decentralized storage and archive nodes;
• reduce hardware requirements for validators.

A cost-balancing mechanism will also be introduced to reduce sharp gas price fluctuations.

Image caption: Expected Ethereum throughput improvements after the Glamsterdam upgrade

Impact on Layer 2 Ecosystem

The upgrade is expected to significantly impact Layer 2 (L2) solutions:

• reduced L1 data costs;
• approximately 70% lower aggregation fees;
• increased competition among L2 networks.

This is especially relevant for:

• Arbitrum
• Optimism
• Base

Analysts believe this will:

• strengthen Ethereum’s role as a secure Layer 1 (L1);
• reinforce the two-layer architecture where high-speed, low-cost transactions occur on L2.

See also: "Banking Lobby Opposes Latest Version of the CLARITY Act"

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