Ethereum's Glamsterdam hard fork, targeted for mid-2026, represents the network's largest execution-layer overhaul since the Merge. The upgrade centers on two formally scheduled Ethereum Improvement Proposals — EIP-7732 (Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation) and EIP-7928 (Block-Level Access List...
"2026 is the year of professionalisation of Ethereum and the wider crypto ecosystem. We are witnessing remarkable momentum across the board." — Jérôme de Tychey, Founder and President, Ethereum France
Ethereum's Glamsterdam hard fork, targeted for mid-2026, represents the network's largest execution-layer overhaul since the Merge. The upgrade centers on two formally scheduled Ethereum Improvement Proposals — EIP-7732 (Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation) and EIP-7928 (Block-Level Access Lists) — that together aim to push the gas limit from 60 million toward 100–200 million per block, enable parallel transaction processing, and move the MEV auction from third-party relays into the consensus layer.
The timing is notable. Ethereum's 30-day fee revenue has collapsed to $10.3 million as of March 2026, placing it behind Tron and Solana in fee generation. Daily active addresses hit record highs above 2 million, but smart contract calls exceeding 40 million per day generate less revenue than at any prior activity peak. Glamsterdam is the Ethereum Foundation's answer to the question of whether layer-1 can recapture economic gravity from layer-2 networks that now process the majority of transaction volume at sub-cent fees.
This report examines the technical scope of Glamsterdam, compares its approach to competing layer-1 scaling strategies from Solana, Aptos, and Monad, and assesses the upgrade's implications for Ethereum's economic model.
Glamsterdam does not exist in a vacuum. Its predecessor, the Fusaka upgrade, activated on December 3, 2025, introduced PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling) and raised blob capacity through two parameter-only forks: BPO1 (December 9, 2025) increased the blob target to 10 and maximum to 15; BPO2 (January 7, 2026) pushed the target to 14 and maximum to 21.
The result has been a capacity surplus. Analysis of over 750,000 slots since Fusaka activation shows median blob counts per block fell from 6 before the first adjustment to 4 afterward, according to CryptoSlate. The network built capacity ahead of demand.
More concerning: blocks containing 16 or more blobs exhibit elevated miss rates. At lower blob counts, the baseline miss rate sits at approximately 0.5%. At 16+ blobs, miss rates climb to 0.77%–1.79%. At the 21-blob maximum, the miss rate reaches 1.79% — more than triple baseline.
This matters for Glamsterdam because it demonstrates that capacity increases carry reliability trade-offs. Ethereum developers are building new headroom while existing headroom remains underutilized.
The upgrade contains two headline EIPs plus over 25 non-headliner proposals under consideration. Devnet testing is underway: developers are stress-testing bals-devnet-2 and epbs-devnet-0 as of Q1 2026. Public testnets with dual audit phases are planned for spring, with mainnet activation tentatively targeted for May–June 2026.
Ethereum core developer discussions have flagged a scope risk. The Base engineering team publicly warned that adding FOCIL (Fork-Choice Inclusion Lists) alongside ePBS could delay the upgrade beyond 2026. As of late March, FOCIL appears unlikely to make the cut.
Between late 2023 and early 2024, three builders produced nearly 80% of all Ethereum blocks, according to Flashbots data. This centralization emerged because MEV-Boost, the off-protocol relay system that separates block proposers from block builders, created a power-law dynamic where scale advantages compound.
EIP-7732 moves the proposer-builder auction directly into Ethereum's consensus layer. Under ePBS:
The stated benefit: eliminating the relay as a trust assumption and single point of failure. MEV-Boost relays currently handle the majority of Ethereum block construction. Moving this process on-chain reduces the risk surface and, according to Ethereum Foundation analysis, has been shown to increase staking rewards by up to 60% in simulations.
The MEV reduction target is approximately 70%, according to estimates cited in multiple technical analyses. Whether this materializes depends on builder behavior post-migration, which remains empirically untested at mainnet scale.
Block-Level Access Lists (BALs) declare every account, storage key, balance, nonce, and code reference that a block will touch before execution begins. This pre-declaration enables parallel processing — nodes can identify non-conflicting transactions and execute them simultaneously across multiple CPU cores.
Ethereum currently processes transactions sequentially. Each transaction in a block executes after the previous one completes. BALs convert this single-lane architecture into a multi-lane system where independent transactions run concurrently.
The practical effect: faster block validation. If a node can validate a block in less time, the network can safely increase the gas limit without degrading performance for home validators. This is the mechanism through which Ethereum intends to reach 10,000 TPS on layer-1, roughly 10x its current mainnet capacity.
Toni Wahrstätter, an Ethereum researcher, noted that Block-Level Access Lists received "much love from core devs recently," reflecting broad consensus on the proposal's technical merits.
The Ethereum Foundation outlined its 2026 protocol priorities in February, with Tomasz Stańczak, then co-executive director, stating the target is to push the gas limit "toward and beyond" 100 million in the first half of 2026. The Glamsterdam fork delivers the first phase, with progressive increases to 150 million units.
Following ePBS activation, optimistic estimates project the limit could reach 200 million — a 3.3x increase from the current 60 million. At 200 million gas per block, combined with parallel processing from BALs, the projected throughput is approximately 10,000 TPS.
For context, the current gas limit of 60 million yields roughly 15–20 TPS on mainnet (approximately 1,000 TPS when including layer-2 networks). The upgrade path from Pectra's doubling of blob throughput (3 to 6 blobs per block) through Fusaka's 21-blob ceiling to Glamsterdam's gas limit expansion represents a systematic, multi-upgrade scaling trajectory.
The fee reduction estimate: 78.6% across both simple transfers and complex smart contract calls, according to analysis published by Phemex.
Ethereum's parallel processing ambitions arrive in a market where competitors already execute in parallel.
Solana processes approximately 1,133 real-world TPS according to Chainspect data, with the Firedancer validator client expected to push throughput toward 10,000+ TPS by mid-2026. Theoretical capacity stands at 65,000 TPS. Average transaction cost: $0.00025. Solana's architecture has processed parallel transactions since genesis — it is not retrofitting this capability.
Aptos claims to be the first blockchain to sustain 20,000 TPS at sub-second latency through its Zaptos network architecture, though real-world utilization according to Chainspect registers at 61.73 TPS. Block time: 0.1 seconds. Theoretical ceiling: 160,000 TPS.
Sui records 33.24 real-world TPS with a maximum recorded throughput of 926.5 TPS. Its distinguishing metric is finality: effectively 0 seconds according to Chainspect tracking, with block time of 0.1 seconds. Theoretical capacity: 120,000 TPS.
Monad targets 10,000 TPS with full EVM compatibility and sub-second (800ms) finality. Its value proposition is parallel execution within the EVM framework — the same goal Glamsterdam pursues, but on a purpose-built chain.
The comparison illuminates Ethereum's architectural constraint: it is retrofitting parallel execution onto a sequentially designed system. Competitors built parallel processing into their foundations. The question is whether Ethereum's network effects, validator decentralization (approximately 1 million active validators), and $400+ billion in secured value justify the slower path.
The economic context for Glamsterdam is stark. Ethereum's average gas fee dropped 95% from 72 gwei to 2.7 gwei following the Dencun upgrade. Daily gas revenue declined 70%, from $23 million to $7.5 million. In March 2026, 30-day fee revenue stands at $10.3 million, behind both Tron and Solana.
The paradox: Ethereum processes more activity than ever — daily active addresses above 2 million, smart contract calls exceeding 40 million per day — but layer-2 networks capture the economic value. Arbitrum charges $0.005–$0.30 per transaction, Base charges under $0.01, and Optimism charges $0.01–$0.20. Base alone generates $185,291 in daily revenue compared to Arbitrum's $55,025.
Vitalik Buterin acknowledged this dynamic in a February 27, 2026 post on Ethereum Research, stating that the original rollup-centric roadmap "no longer makes sense." Progress among layer-2s toward decentralization "has been slower and more difficult than expected," and Ethereum is now scaling directly on layer-1.
Glamsterdam's gas limit increase could reverse the revenue trend if it attracts activity back to mainnet. A 78% fee reduction at 3.3x the throughput means more transactions at lower individual cost — whether total revenue increases depends entirely on demand elasticity. If volume rises faster than the per-unit fee falls, mainnet revenue recovers. If not, the fee compression accelerates.
Timeline risk. Developers have emphasized that hitting the June target is secondary to stability. A slip to Q3 or Q4 2026 remains possible. If ePBS wasn't ready for interoperability by the end of February, it could have been deferred to the Hegotá fork — though current testing suggests it remains on track.
Scope creep. Over 25 additional EIPs are under consideration. Each addition increases testing surface area and delay risk. The FOCIL debate illustrates this tension.
Blob utilization. Fusaka's capacity increases remain underutilized. Adding layer-1 capacity atop underused layer-2 capacity raises the question of whether Ethereum is building infrastructure ahead of demand or misallocating development resources.
Validator hardware requirements. Parallel processing and higher gas limits increase computational load. Ethereum's commitment to supporting home validators (~$500 hardware) creates a ceiling on how aggressively throughput can scale without centralizing the validator set.
Relay migration. Moving from MEV-Boost relays to on-chain ePBS requires the entire block-building ecosystem to adapt. Transition-period disruptions are possible. Builder behavior under ePBS is empirically unknown at mainnet scale.
Glamsterdam is Ethereum's most consequential execution-layer upgrade since the Merge, and it arrives at a moment of acute economic pressure. The network has never been more active, yet has never generated less revenue relative to that activity. Layer-2 networks have succeeded in scaling Ethereum's throughput but have also succeeded in redirecting its economic value.
The upgrade's technical merits are substantial. ePBS addresses a documented centralization vector in block building. Block-Level Access Lists enable a genuine architectural shift from sequential to parallel processing. The gas limit expansion, if executed without degrading validator accessibility, could meaningfully increase mainnet throughput.
Whether Glamsterdam reverses Ethereum's revenue decline depends on a variable the protocol cannot directly control: whether users and applications choose to transact on an upgraded layer-1 rather than continue migrating to increasingly cheap layer-2 networks. The upgrade makes layer-1 faster and cheaper. It does not make it cheaper than rollups.
The comparative landscape is also less forgiving than in prior upgrade cycles. Solana, Aptos, Sui, and Monad offer parallel processing as a native capability, not a retrofit. Ethereum's advantages — validator decentralization, capital secured, and ecosystem breadth — are real but insufficient on their own if the execution layer cannot compete on cost and speed.
Glamsterdam is scheduled. The testnets are running. The question is not whether Ethereum can ship the upgrade, but whether the upgrade ships the economics.