The Ethereum Foundation said developers have achieved major milestones for the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade while reorganizing leadership within its Protocol Cluster as the network accelerates work on scalability, MEV reduction and long-term infrastructure modernization.

According to the Foundation’s May 2026 Protocol Cluster update, developers advanced testing and interoperability work during a recent engineering event held in Svalbard, Norway. The update confirmed that Ethereum’s multi-client Glamsterdam development network is now live, with key components including enshrined proposer-builder separation, or ePBS, and EIP-8037 progressing toward deployment readiness.

The Glamsterdam upgrade is expected to become Ethereum’s next major hard fork following the Fusaka upgrade introduced in late 2025. Developers said the fork focuses primarily on Layer-1 scalability improvements, block efficiency optimization and formalizing parts of Ethereum’s MEV infrastructure directly at the protocol level.

The Foundation said developers established a “credible post-Glamsterdam target” involving a 200 million gas limit floor, substantially above Ethereum’s current gas capacity of roughly 60 million gas. Analysts said the increase could significantly improve throughput and transaction capacity on the Ethereum base layer.

Ethereum developers also confirmed that ePBS is now running stably across a multi-client Glamsterdam devnet environment. The mechanism allows validators to outsource block-building responsibilities to specialized builders while preserving decentralization and reducing risks tied to MEV concentration.

In parallel, EIP-8037 has reached finalization status. The proposal introduces a revised pricing model for Ethereum state storage using a fixed “cost_per_state_byte” structure intended to slow excessive state growth as block gas limits increase. According to technical summaries released by developers, the mechanism aims to keep annual state growth near 60 GiB even under significantly larger block sizes.

Developers Shift Additional Features to Hegotá Upgrade

The Foundation also confirmed that several major roadmap items previously expected for Glamsterdam have now been moved into the later Hegotá upgrade cycle, which is increasingly positioned as a late-2026 “cleanup and optimization” fork.

Among the features shifted to Hegotá are FOCIL, or Fork-choice Inclusion Lists, Verkle Trees and expanded account abstraction functionality. Developers said the decision was made to avoid overloading the Glamsterdam fork and to keep implementation complexity manageable.

FOCIL is designed to improve censorship resistance within Ethereum block production, while Verkle Trees are expected to reduce node storage requirements significantly and support Ethereum’s long-term transition toward stateless client architectures.

The Foundation said runnable FOCIL prototypes already exist and account abstraction requirements for Hegotá have now been formally defined. Multi-client validation testing is expected to begin during the next development phase.

Ethereum developers emphasized that the immediate priority remains finalizing Glamsterdam implementation while continuing work on the broader “Strawmap” roadmap focused on long-term scalability and quantum-resistant infrastructure.

Protocol Cluster Leadership Undergoes Major Restructuring

Alongside the technical updates, the Ethereum Foundation announced a significant leadership transition within its Protocol Cluster organization. Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko are departing management roles, while researcher Alex Stokes will take a sabbatical leave.

The Foundation named Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn and Fredrik as the new Protocol Cluster leads. Corcoran will oversee zkVM proofs and post-quantum consensus coordination, Wedderburn will lead zkEVM development and Fredrik will manage protocol security initiatives including the “Trillion Dollar Security” project.

The restructuring reflects Ethereum’s growing emphasis on modular development and specialized protocol research as the network’s roadmap becomes increasingly complex. Analysts said the leadership changes also signal a generational transition within Ethereum’s core development ecosystem following several years of rapid infrastructure expansion.

The Foundation credited the outgoing Protocol Cluster structure with helping deliver the Fusaka upgrade and introducing PeerDAS, which expanded Ethereum’s data availability capacity and laid groundwork for future scalability improvements.

Developers cautioned that timelines for both Glamsterdam and Hegotá remain subject to testing outcomes and interoperability results. While Glamsterdam was originally targeted for the first half of 2026, several ecosystem observers now expect deployment to shift closer toward the third quarter.