Ethereum Foundation Outlines 2026 Protocol Priorities With New Three‑Track Development Framework

Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Ethereum, announced that it has released its protocol priority update for 2026. According to the announcement, the update outlines a revised structure for development efforts, which will now be organized into three tracks beginning next year.

The Scale track, led by Ansgar Dietrichs, Marius van der Wijden and Raúl Kripalani, consolidates work that was previously divided between Scale L1 and Scale Blobs. The organization stated that execution capacity improvements and data availability expansion are closely linked, making a unified approach more efficient. Gas limit increases rely on execution engine performance, while blob scaling requires networking and consensus adjustments that affect the same client components. Centralizing these efforts is intended to accelerate progress and provide a more comprehensive view of system-wide changes.

The track’s priorities include raising the gas limit toward and beyond 100 million, supported by Block-level Access Lists (EIP‑7928) and continued client benchmarking. It also focuses on delivering scaling components for the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade, such as ePBS (EIP‑7732), repricings and additional blob parameter increases. Further goals involve advancing the zkEVM attester client from prototype to production readiness and pursuing state-scaling initiatives, from short‑term repricing and history expiry to long‑term transitions toward binary trees and statelessness.

Meanwhile, the Improve UX track, led by Barnabé Monnot and Matt Garnett, continues work initiated last year with a sharper emphasis on native account abstraction and interoperability. According to the announcement, EIP‑7702 marked a significant step, but the long‑term objective is to make smart contract wallets the default without relying on bundlers, relayers or additional gas overhead. Proposals such as EIP‑7701 and EIP‑8141 (Frame Transactions) aim to embed smart account logic directly into the protocol. This direction also aligns with post‑quantum preparedness, as native account abstraction could support migration away from ECDSA‑based authentication. Additional proposals are being explored to reduce the gas cost of verifying quantum‑resistant signatures in the EVM.

On interoperability, the track builds on the Open Intents Framework, with the goal of enabling seamless, trust‑minimized interactions across Layer 2 networks. Improvements in L1 confirmation speed and shorter L2 settlement times are expected to support this objective.

Harden The L1 Track To Strengthen Security And Network Resilience 

A new track, Harden the L1, is led by Fredrik Svantes, Parithosh Jayanthi and Thomas Thiery. It focuses on ensuring that Ethereum maintains its core properties as it scales. The scope includes security, censorship resistance and network resilience.

Security efforts continue under the Trillion Dollar Security Initiative, which includes post‑quantum readiness and execution‑layer safeguards such as post‑execution transaction assertions and trustless RPCs. Censorship resistance research, led by Thomas Thiery, covers FOCIL (EIP‑7805) and related extensions, including blob‑level protections, statelessness (VOPS) and the development of measurable censorship‑resistance metrics. Network resilience work, overseen by Parithosh Jayanthi, centers on devnets, testnets and client interoperability testing—components that become increasingly important as the network moves toward a faster upgrade cadence.

The next major network upgrade, Glamsterdam, is scheduled for the first half of 2026, followed by Hegotá later in the year. Planned advancements include parallel execution, higher gas limits, enshrined PBS, continued blob scaling and progress on censorship resistance, native account abstraction and post‑quantum security. The organization plans to continue publishing updates for each track and directs interested readers to protocol.ethereum.foundation for further information.

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