According to reports, Ethereum is planning two big ones hard jaws 2026, which aim to change the way the network works. Glamsterdam will be upgraded in mid-2026, and Heze-Bogotá is scheduled for late 2026. These steps aim to speed up transaction handling, add new validation tools, and make the chain more difficult to censor.
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Ethereum trading, options pressure
Ethereum is currently above $2,900 as the market awaits the expiration of major options. Reports estimate a $6 billion notional amount is expiring, with more call options than puts. Many contracts could end up worthless if ETH fails to rise above $3100, the so-called maximum pain level.
Analysts see a consolidation range between $2,700 and $3,100 by the end of the year, with some experts offering a bearish outlook for 2026, pointing to possible declines towards $1,800-$2,000 if broader market conditions worsen.
Parallel execution
Glamsterdam it aims for parallel processing by allowing multiple transactions to run at the same time instead of one after the other. Access blocklists will tell nodes what data each transaction needs, making parallel operation safer and more efficient.
Ethereum will see key upgrades in 2026, with the Glamsterdam fork enabling parallel processing and increasing the gas limit to 200 million, up from 60 million. Validators will switch to ZK proof verification, paving the way for Ethereum L1 to reach 10,000 transactions per…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) December 25, 2025
Separation of proponents and builders at the level of the protocol or ePBS is also planned. The move is expected to reduce some centralization risks and make it easier for validators to use proof-of-no-knowledge (KO) without being penalized for additional computation time.
Gas caps are expected to increase in phases, with talk of reaching 200 million per block after key changes. About 10% of validators could start verifying ZK proofs instead of re-verifying all transactions by the end of the year, based on current projections.
Encouraging parallel execution could reduce the slowdowns that occur when demand spikes. But higher gas limits come with trade-offs. Running larger blocks or faster workloads can increase hardware requirements, which could make it harder for smaller validators to stay in the network. This balance between speed and decentralization will be closely monitored.
Layer-2 Throughput could spike
The main part of the story is layer 2 scaling. Increasing the number of data blobs per block to 72 or more would give L2 systems much more space to store transaction data, potentially allowing them to process hundreds of thousands of transactions per second in total.
Designs like ZKsync’s Elastic Network aim to allow users to keep money on Ethereum while using the faster L2. An interoperability layer is also discussed to facilitate moving activities between different L2s. However, user experience, liquidity distribution and coordination between chains remain open issues that need to be worked on.
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Heze-Bogota: Resistance to censorship
Heze-Bogotá will add tools to help groups of validators ensure that certain transactions are included. Fork-choice inclusion lists aim to reduce the risk of blocking transactions if only part of the network remains fair. That change is more about values and permissionless access than raw speed.
Featured image from Firi, chart from TradingView
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