The Ethereum Foundation has released its 2026 roadmap, setting ambitious targets for network throughput, usability, and long-term security.
Following a highly productive 2025, which included the Pectra and Fusaka upgrades, Ethereum aims to continue scaling its base layer while preparing for future threats, including quantum computing.
Scaling Ethereum and Improving UX
In 2025, Ethereum doubled blob throughput, raised validator balances, shortened onboarding times, and steadily increased the mainnet gas limit from 30M to 60M. The Pectra and Fusaka upgrades introduced features such as transaction batching, gas sponsorship, and peer-to-peer data sampling, improving both efficiency and usability.
Building on this progress, the 2026 roadmap organizes development into three tracks. The Scale track focuses on raising the gas limit toward and beyond 100M, advancing zero-knowledge proof attester clients, and continuing blob scaling.
The Improve UX track emphasizes native account abstraction, allowing smart contract wallets to operate without relayers, and interoperability improvements through the Open Intents Framework to streamline cross-L2 interactions.
Hardening Security and Preparing for the Future
The newly created Harden the L1 track targets Ethereum’s long-term resilience. Key priorities include post-quantum cryptography research, execution-layer safeguards, censorship resistance, and robust testing infrastructure. Initiatives like parallel execution, Proposer-Builder Separation, and state scaling will be implemented in upcoming upgrades.
Ethereum plans two major network upgrades in 2026; Glamsterdam in the first half of the year and Hegotá later, featuring higher gas limits, continued blob scaling, enhanced L1 security, native account abstraction, and post-quantum readiness.
These efforts reflect Ethereum’s commitment to growing throughput, improving usability, and securing the network against emerging threats.
Ethereum and the Future of AI
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared his perspective on how the blockchain can play a role in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. He envisions Ethereum enabling secure and decentralized interactions with AI systems rather than merely accelerating AI development.
This includes supporting private AI computation, encrypted API calls, and client-side verification of proofs, which together can form the foundation for trustless AI applications.
Vitalik also sees Ethereum serving as an economic layer for AI-related activity. The platform could support automated coordination between AI systems, smart contract-enabled transactions, and on-chain dispute resolution, allowing AI to operate in decentralized marketplaces. By integrating AI with Ethereum, complex governance and decision-making processes, such as prediction markets and quadratic voting, can scale beyond human limitations.