Ethereum's 2026 overhaul aims to reduce costs and increase speed

According to reports, Ethereum is planning two major actions Solid forks in 2026 which aims to change how the grid is operated. Mid-2026 will see Glamsterdam upgraded, and Hezi-Bogotá is scheduled to be upgraded in late 2026. These steps aim to speed up transaction processing, add new verification tools, and make on-chain oversight more difficult.

Ethereum trading, options squeeze

Ethereum Currently above $2,900 as the market waits for a large options expiration. Reports have put the notional expiring value at $6 billion, with more call options than put options. Many contracts could become worthless if ETH fails to rise above $3,100, the so-called maximum pain level.

Analysts see a consolidation range of $2,700 to $3,100 through the end of the year, and some experts offer a bearish view for 2026, pointing to potential declines toward $1,800 to $2,000 if broader market conditions worsen.

Parallel execution

Glamsterdam It targets parallel processing by allowing multiple transactions to be executed at the same time rather than one after the other. Blocked access lists will tell nodes what data each transaction needs, making parallel work more secure and efficient.

Ethereum will undergo major upgrades in 2026, with the Glamsterdam fork enabling parallel processing and increasing the gas limit to 200 million, up from 60 million. Validators will shift to validating ZK proofs, paving the way for Ethereum L1 to achieve 10,000 transactions per…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) December 25, 2025

It is also planned to separate the bidder and builder at the protocol level, or ePBS. This move is expected to reduce some centralization risks and make it easier for validators to use zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs without penalizing them for additional computation time.

Gas limits are expected to rise in stages, with talk of reaching 200 million per block after major changes. About 10% of auditors could start checking ZK evidence rather than re-examining all transactions by the end of the year, based on current expectations.

Hk4iGFut — Ether is trading at $2,974 on the 24-hour chart: TradingView

A push toward parallel execution could reduce slowdowns that occur when demand rises. But higher gas limits come with tradeoffs. Running larger blocks or faster workloads can increase hardware needs, which can make it more difficult for smaller validators to remain in the network. This balance between speed and decentralization will be closely monitored.

The productivity of the second layer can jump sharply

A big part of the story is the sizing of the second layer. Increasing the number of data points per block to 72 or more would give L2 systems much more space to store transaction data, potentially allowing them to process hundreds of thousands of transactions per second in total.

Designs like the ZKsync Elastic Network aim to allow users to hold money on Ethereum while using faster L2s. The interoperability layer to move activity between different L2s more easily is also discussed. However, user experience, liquidity forks, and cross-chain coordination remain open issues that need work.