Ethereum's next hard fork, Glamsterdam, targets a May–June 2026 mainnet deployment with two structural overhauls: Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS, EIP-7732) on the consensus layer and Block-Level Access Lists (BALs, EIP-7928) on the execution layer. Together, the changes aim to lift L...
"ePBS splits block production into two parties acting in sequence inside consensus... Every part of the stack has to reason about partial blocks and two-party coordination, a change that touches practically everything." — Ethereum Foundation, Checkpoint #9 (April 2026)
Ethereum's next hard fork, Glamsterdam, targets a May–June 2026 mainnet deployment with two structural overhauls: Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS, EIP-7732) on the consensus layer and Block-Level Access Lists (BALs, EIP-7928) on the execution layer. Together, the changes aim to lift L1 throughput from approximately 15–20 TPS to roughly 10,000 TPS while cutting gas costs by 78.6%.
The upgrade arrives as Ethereum L1 gas fees sit at historic lows — 0.052 gwei as of April 2026, down from 1.67 gwei a year earlier — and as two block builders control more than 90% of block production. Glamsterdam attempts to solve both problems simultaneously: ePBS removes trusted relay infrastructure from MEV supply chains, while BALs enable parallel transaction execution across multiple CPU cores. Whether these two complex subsystems can stabilize on devnets quickly enough for a Q2 mainnet fork remains the central open question.
Ethereum processes approximately 200.4 million transactions in Q1 2026, representing 43% quarter-over-quarter growth. Daily peak throughput hit a record 2.89 million transactions in February 2026. However, these numbers mask a structural shift: Layer 2 networks now account for approximately 95% of Ethereum's total transaction throughput, exceeding 2 million daily transactions and relegating L1 to a settlement and data availability layer.
Gas revenue reflects this dynamic. Daily gas revenue has declined from a peak of approximately $23 million to $6.3 million, according to DefiLlama data. Monthly revenue placed Ethereum third in February 2026 at $23.2 million. Average gas prices fell to 0.052 gwei in April 2026 — a 96.9% decline from 1.67 gwei one year prior — effectively meaning Ethereum L1 transactions now cost approximately $0.01 each.
The network runs 1.1 million active validators staking 35.86 million ETH (28.91% of total supply), representing approximately $112 billion in economic security. Staking yield has compressed to 2.1–2.8% APY for most participants, with net staking inflows turning negative in January 2026 as approximately 600,000 ETH exited the validator set.
The current MEV supply chain operates through off-chain relays — principally MEV-Boost infrastructure maintained by Flashbots. Under this system, block builders assemble transaction bundles, relay operators verify them, and validators blindly sign the highest-paying block header. The problem: two builders control more than 90% of block production, creating systemic centralization risk at an infrastructure layer that sits outside protocol governance.
EIP-7732 moves this separation into the protocol itself. Under ePBS:
The design introduces explicit deadlines and payload commitments enforced at the consensus layer, replacing trust assumptions with cryptographic guarantees. According to the Ethereum Foundation's April 2026 Checkpoint #9 report, the implementation is "proving to be trickier than anticipated" because the protocol must now handle disagreement or failure between two sequential parties in every block slot.
BALs represent what the Ethereum Foundation describes as "a fundamental rethinking of how gas and state access work." The proposal introduces a new block header field (block_access_list_hash) containing the Keccak-256 hash of all accounts and storage slots accessed during block execution, along with their post-execution values.
This enables four parallel operations that currently run sequentially:
According to Ethereum Research analysis, 60–80% of transactions access disjoint storage slots, enabling effective parallelization. The remaining 20–40% can be parallelized using post-transaction state diffs. Historical data shows approximately 70 KiB average BAL size per block.
The approach differs fundamentally from competing chains: Ethereum requires transactions to declare state access upfront (deterministic parallelism), whereas Monad uses optimistic execution and re-executes on conflict. Ethereum's method guarantees conflict-free parallel execution but requires tooling changes from developers.
EIP-7904 recalibrates opcode gas costs using benchmarks from modern hardware, addressing prices set years ago that no longer reflect actual computation costs. The repricing produces a 78.6% reduction across both simple ETH transfers and complex smart contract interactions.
Practically, a Uniswap trade currently costing $3–8 in gas could drop below $1. The gas limit increases from 60 million to 200 million per block, yielding over 3x execution capacity growth. A further doubling is expected shortly after deployment, according to the Ethereum Foundation roadmap.
Two companion EIPs adjust the economics of state growth:
This decouples state creation from execution gas. Until now, deploying a new contract or opening a new storage slot consumed the same gas type as running computations, meaning scaling compute capacity inevitably bloated Ethereum's state. The Glamsterdam package addresses both sides: cheaper computation, more expensive state expansion.
The current MEV market exhibits acute centralization. Two builders capture over 90% of Ethereum's block market. Flashbots data from late 2024 showed 80% of MEV captured by the top 5 searcher entities, with concentration indices rising 25% year-over-year.
ePBS aims to reduce this concentration by removing the need for trusted relays — effectively commoditizing the proposer role and forcing competition on block content quality rather than relay relationships. However, academic research raises concerns about unintended consequences.
A January 2026 paper published on arXiv ("Enshrined Proposer Builder Separation in the presence of Maximal Extractable Value") found that ePBS significantly amplifies profit centralization among builders: the Gini coefficient for builder profits rises from 0.1749 under standard PoS without ePBS to 0.8358 under ePBS. This indicates that a small number of efficient builders would capture most value through MEV-driven auctions, even as validator responsibilities become more standardized.
Flashbots anticipated this dynamic, launching BuilderNet in December 2024 — a multioperator system where multiple parties operate the same block builder in Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). The intent is to prevent any single entity from monopolizing block construction post-ePBS. Whether this architectural bet pays off depends on adoption rates among competing builder operations.
According to the Ethereum Foundation's Checkpoint #9 (April 10, 2026):
The Foundation's commentary signals Q2 2026 mainnet activation is unlikely. Developer Nixo's assessment, referenced in the checkpoint, indicates the fork may slip to Q3. Public testnet activation on Holesky and Sepolia has not yet occurred as of early May 2026.
The complexity of ePBS implementation is the primary bottleneck. Every consensus client must reason about "partial blocks" — a state where a proposer has committed to a builder's payload but the builder has not yet delivered it. This scenario did not previously exist in Ethereum's consensus model and touches attestation logic, fork-choice rules, and sync protocols.
Glamsterdam's performance targets place Ethereum L1 in direct competition with alternative Layer 1 architectures:
| Metric | Ethereum (post-Glamsterdam) | Solana (Firedancer) | Monad | |--------|----------------------------|---------------------|-------| | Target TPS | ~10,000 | 1,000–1,500 (current); 1M (theoretical) | 10,000+ | | Block time | ~12 seconds | ~400ms | ~400ms | | EVM compatible | Native | No | Full | | Active validators | 1,100,000+ | ~1,500 | Emerging | | Parallelism approach | Declared access (deterministic) | Sealevel VM (native) | Optimistic execution |
Solana's Firedancer client, a complete C-language rewrite introduced in 2026, targets theoretical throughput of one million TPS by eliminating software bottlenecks in the validator stack. Monad, an EVM-compatible Layer 1, has demonstrated 10,000+ TPS with sub-500ms block times on testnet.
Ethereum's strategic bet is that 500,000+ validators, the deepest DeFi liquidity pool, and the largest developer community create sufficient network effects to retain activity even if competitors offer superior raw throughput. Glamsterdam's role is to make the incumbent "fast enough" — removing the performance disparity as a migration incentive while preserving decentralization advantages that alternatives cannot replicate at their validator counts.
ePBS restructures validator economics in several ways:
Simplified validator duties: Proposers no longer need sophisticated MEV extraction capabilities. They select sealed blocks based on bids, reducing hardware requirements and operational complexity for solo validators.
Yield redistribution: Under current MEV-Boost, validators capture MEV through priority fees and builder bids. Under ePBS, this mechanism becomes protocol-enshrined, potentially standardizing distribution but also removing competitive advantages that sophisticated validators currently enjoy.
Builder market competition: If ePBS increases builder concentration (as the Gini coefficient research suggests), fewer builders may compete for blocks, potentially reducing aggregate bids to proposers over time.
With staking yields already at 2.1–2.8% APY and net staking outflows recorded in early 2026, any reduction in MEV redistribution to validators could accelerate unstaking trends. The 600,000 ETH net exit observed in January 2026 may represent early positioning ahead of this structural change.
Glamsterdam represents Ethereum's most architecturally ambitious upgrade since The Merge. By moving MEV infrastructure on-chain and enabling parallel execution, the upgrade addresses the two most frequently cited L1 deficiencies: throughput limitations and block production centralization. The technical scope is commensurate with these goals — touching consensus attestation logic, fork-choice rules, execution scheduling, and gas pricing simultaneously.
The central risk is coordination complexity. ePBS requires every consensus client to handle a failure mode (partial blocks) that did not previously exist. BALs require execution clients to implement parallel scheduling logic and developers to adapt tooling for declared state access. Over 25 additional EIPs await inclusion. The Ethereum Foundation's own April 2026 assessment characterizes progress as "slow but steady" — accurate but also signaling that the June 2026 target may slip.
For the economic value chain, Glamsterdam's effects flow in two directions. Cheaper gas and higher throughput should increase L1 transaction volume, partially offsetting fee revenue compression. But ePBS may concentrate builder profits among fewer entities while commoditizing the proposer role, creating tension with Ethereum's decentralization thesis. The academic literature's warning — that protocol-enshrined separation can paradoxically increase market concentration — deserves monitoring as devnets mature and the builder ecosystem adapts.