Ethereum's next major hard fork, code-named Glamsterdam, is on track for a May-June 2026 mainnet deployment. The upgrade combines execution-layer changes (Amsterdam) with consensus-layer modifications (Gloas) across at least 17 EIPs, headlined by EIP-7732 (enshrined proposer-builder separation) a...
"If a small number of builders dominate, they could still censor transactions or extract outsized profits from users." — Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Co-Founder
Ethereum's next major hard fork, code-named Glamsterdam, is on track for a May-June 2026 mainnet deployment. The upgrade combines execution-layer changes (Amsterdam) with consensus-layer modifications (Gloas) across at least 17 EIPs, headlined by EIP-7732 (enshrined proposer-builder separation) and EIP-7928 (block-level access lists). Together, these changes target a 78.6% reduction in gas fees for smart contract interactions and a structural overhaul of how Ethereum blocks are built and validated.
The upgrade arrives as Ethereum trades near $2,080 with a market cap of approximately $251 billion — down roughly 20% from September 2025 highs. With 1.1 million active validators staking 35.8 million ETH (28.9% of supply), the network's security budget exceeds $112 billion. Yet the block-building layer remains acutely centralized: three entities produce over 90% of blocks through MEV-Boost relays. Glamsterdam's core thesis is that Ethereum's economic layer cannot scale unless block construction is decentralized at the protocol level.
Ethereum's current block production pipeline relies on MEV-Boost, an out-of-protocol relay system maintained primarily by Flashbots. In this architecture, validators (proposers) outsource block construction to specialized builders who compete to assemble the most profitable blocks. The proposer selects the highest-bidding block and earns a fee.
The data shows extreme concentration. According to on-chain analysis, two builders — Beaverbuild and Titan Builder — were responsible for 88.7% of all MEV-Boost blocks in October 2024. By early 2026, the top three builders still control approximately 90% of block production. This concentration creates several risks: potential transaction censorship, outsized MEV extraction, and systemic dependency on off-protocol infrastructure that operates with no formal governance.
Flashbots attempted to address this with BuilderNet, a decentralized block-building network launched in late 2024. BuilderNet runs on Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and distributes MEV rewards across participants. It represents an improvement, but remains an off-protocol patch. The core relay architecture — where validators trust third-party software to deliver valid, profitable blocks — persists.
Glamsterdam aims to make this relay dependency optional by moving PBS into the consensus layer itself.
EIP-7732 is a consensus-layer-only change that formally separates block proposing from block building within Ethereum's protocol rules. Under the current system, validators either build blocks themselves (inefficient, rarely done) or delegate to MEV-Boost relays (efficient, but trust-dependent). EIP-7732 creates a protocol-native mechanism for this delegation.
The mechanics work as follows: proposers commit to a block header from a builder, and builders reveal the block body after commitment. The protocol enforces payment from builder to proposer, removing the need for trusted relay intermediaries. If a builder fails to reveal a valid block, the protocol handles the fallback rather than leaving the validator exposed.
The implications extend beyond MEV mechanics. Enshrined PBS enables faster block propagation because the network can begin consensus on a block header before the full body is available. This two-phase commitment structure reduces latency in block finalization and creates a more predictable economic relationship between proposers and builders.
According to Ethereum Foundation researchers, ePBS also opens the path to future censorship-resistance mechanisms. The proposed FOCIL (Fork Choice Inclusion Lists) anti-censorship system, which Buterin has advocated for, requires enshrined PBS as a prerequisite. Without protocol-level separation, censorship resistance remains dependent on the goodwill of a handful of relay operators.
The second headliner, EIP-7928, introduces block-level access lists (BALs) — a new data structure appended to each block that records every account and storage slot accessed during execution, along with post-execution values.
Unlike the optional transaction-level access lists introduced by EIP-2930, block-level access lists are enforced by the protocol. A new field, block_access_list_hash, is added to the block header containing the Keccak-256 hash of the RLP-encoded access list. Only addresses and storage slots actually touched during execution are recorded.
The practical impact is significant. Currently, Ethereum transaction execution cannot be parallelized because the EVM does not know in advance which state elements a transaction will access. With BALs, nodes can perform parallel disk reads, parallel transaction validation, parallel state root computation, and executionless state updates. This means a node receiving a block can verify its correctness without re-executing every transaction sequentially — it can confirm that the access list matches the state changes and validate in parallel.
For validators running consumer hardware, this translates to materially lower verification times. For the network as a whole, it enables higher gas limits without proportionally increasing node operator requirements — a prerequisite for Ethereum's target of 100 million gas per block.
Beyond the two headliners, Glamsterdam includes EIP-7904, which addresses systemic gas mispricing. The proposal targets 18 EVM operations that currently benchmark below 60 Mgas/s — meaning they are underpriced relative to the computational resources they consume. Correcting these prices reduces the gap between worst-case and average-case block execution costs, which in turn allows the network to safely raise the gas limit.
The combined effect of BALs (enabling parallel verification) and gas repricing (correcting cost mismatches) yields a projected 78.6% reduction in effective gas fees for both simple transfers and complex smart contract interactions, according to Ethereum developer estimates. This figure assumes the gas limit increases to the 100M target alongside the repricing changes.
Vitalik Buterin has framed the short-term scaling strategy as achieving 10-30x throughput gains through BALs, ePBS, and gas repricing, with long-term 1,000x gains reserved for ZK-EVM integration in later forks. The Glamsterdam upgrades represent the first concrete implementation of this two-track strategy.
Buterin has also proposed a gas futures market that would allow users to prepay fees, smoothing out fee volatility and enabling more predictable transaction planning. This mechanism is not part of Glamsterdam itself but depends on the gas infrastructure changes the fork introduces.
The Ethereum Foundation DevOps team has completed testing of three EIPs on Devnet-4 and has transitioned to Devnet-5. Client interoperability has been achieved between Lodestar and Lighthouse on the consensus layer, with the goal of supporting 3-4 consensus clients before mainnet deployment.
However, ePBS remains the critical-path item. As of the January 2026 Checkpoint-8 report from the Ethereum Foundation, no dedicated ePBS devnet existed. The feature was described as "a much more complex change" compared to BALs, which already had functioning devnets through the ethpandaops project.
The February deadline for ePBS interoperability was set as a gate: if ePBS was not ready for multi-client interoperability by end of February 2026, it would potentially be deferred to the Hegota fork later in the year. No public announcement of deferral has been made, suggesting the teams are either on track or close to it.
The original candidate pool of over 50 non-headliner EIPs has been narrowed to 17. Perf-Devnet-2 has resumed operations, with Erigon conducting snapshot analysis and validator key distribution adjustments to identify performance bottlenecks. The implementation strategy involves adding features to devnets in small batches until the complete fork specification stabilizes.
Coinbase's Base network published its Glamsterdam priorities, identifying six proposals across three categories: blob scaling, gas repricing, and builder UX improvements. The L2 perspective is particularly relevant because Ethereum's L1 gas and blob costs directly determine L2 operating expenses.
Increased blob capacity — building on the 3-to-6 blob expansion delivered by Pectra in May 2025 — provides L2s with additional data availability bandwidth. For Base, which is simultaneously migrating from Optimism's technology platform to its own unified architecture, the timing aligns with its Base V3 release planned around the Glamsterdam window.
The broader L2 ecosystem stands to benefit from gas repricing. Lower L1 verification costs reduce the overhead of posting proofs and state roots, directly lowering the per-transaction cost for L2 users. This dynamic reinforces Ethereum's rollup-centric roadmap, where L1 serves primarily as a settlement and data availability layer while L2s handle execution volume.
Ethereum developers have confirmed the next upgrade after Glamsterdam: Hegota (combining execution-layer Bogota and consensus-layer Heze). Hegota is tentatively scheduled for late 2026 and will address state bloat, further fee optimization, and potentially post-quantum cryptographic primitives.
Any EIPs deferred from Glamsterdam — whether due to testing delays or complexity concerns — will roll into Hegota. The two-fork-per-year cadence represents Ethereum's "predictable engineering delivery model" adopted in 2025, designed to reduce the scope creep and timeline drift that plagued earlier upgrades like The Merge and Dencun.
Glamsterdam is not a single feature upgrade. It is a structural intervention into Ethereum's economic plumbing — addressing the contradiction of a decentralized network whose block production is controlled by three entities. The combination of enshrined PBS, block-level access lists, and gas repricing represents the largest change to Ethereum's execution and consensus layers since the Pectra fork.
The technical risk is concentrated in ePBS. If the feature clears devnet testing and multi-client interoperability in Q1 2026, the June target is achievable. If not, the feature defers to Hegota, and Glamsterdam ships as a smaller but still meaningful upgrade focused on BALs and gas repricing.
For the $251 billion Ethereum network, the stakes are quantifiable: a 78.6% gas fee reduction and protocol-level decentralization of block building. Whether these changes arrest ETH's six-month price decline depends on factors beyond protocol engineering — but they remove technical objections that have weighed on the network's competitive position against faster, cheaper alternatives.