Ethereum’s Next Big Leap: Developers Reveal ’Hegota’ Upgrade for 2026

Ethereum's roadmap just got a major update—and it's looking beyond the Glamsterdam horizon.

The development team unveiled plans for 'Hegota,' the next major network upgrade slated for 2026. This isn't just another incremental patch; it's being framed as a foundational shift for the world's dominant smart contract platform.

The Vision for a Post-Glamsterdam World

Glamsterdam laid the groundwork, but Hegota aims to build the skyscraper. While details remain under wraps, core developers hint at enhancements targeting scalability, security, and sustainability—the holy trinity of blockchain evolution. The upgrade continues Ethereum's relentless march toward its long-term vision, often leaving other chains scrambling to keep up with its pace of innovation.

Why This Matters for the Network

Every Ethereum upgrade sends ripples across the entire crypto ecosystem. Hegota's proposals will directly impact transaction finality, validator economics, and potentially, the long-debated issuance curve. It reinforces a key narrative: Ethereum development is a multi-year marathon, not a sprint dictated by quarterly earnings calls—a concept traditional finance still struggles to price in.

The announcement cuts through the market noise, shifting focus back to long-term technical execution. It bypasses short-term speculation and lays another stone on the path to a more robust, efficient, and decentralized global computer. For the crypto faithful, it's a signal to keep building. For everyone else? Just another reason the old financial guard is nervously watching from the sidelines, calculators in hand, trying to figure out how to monetize a future they didn't build.

Hard fork decisions and timeline

During the meeting, the team confirmed Fossil as a pre-CFI (Consider For Inclusion) proposal for Hegota. The seal site name was updated to “Jesu” following previous ACDE polls. However, the community input finalized the hard fork’s official name as “Hegota,” with no objections raised.

Nixo suggested a timeline for the selection of the EIP. Headliner proposals are set to start between January 8 and February 4, with discussions scheduled between February 5 and 26. Then, the submission for the non-headliner proposals will follow, with 30 days for evaluation. 

This is expected to ensure efficiency in the evaluation for the EIP while making sure a consensus is garnered by each team of clients. Some EIPs related to repricing have been accepted for CFI. EIP-7904, which addresses general repricing, aims for the repricing of 18 underperforming contracts below 60 Mgas/s. EIP-7976 enhances the call data floor gas, and EIP-7981 enhances access list prices. EIP-8038 proposes a plan to increase the cost of access to gas.

Moreover, EIP-2780 optimizes gas by decreasing the intrinsic gas cost for transactions. Certain solutions for the problem of state growth, such as EIPs 8073 and 8075, as well as AT37, have been deferred for benchmarking before inclusion.

Non-core proposals and contract sizes

The non-core proposals within the upgrade received staggered feedback. The memory repricing proposals of EIP-7686 and EIP-7923 were labeled DFI (Do Not Consider For Inclusion) for lack of support. Meanwhile the TTOR repricing proposal of EIP-7971 and the size-based storage pricing proposal of EIP-8032 were deferred for reassessment. 

The code size proposals for contracts received varying feedback. The proposal for chunk-based code localization in EIP-2926 received support, whereas the larger contracts proposal of EIP-7907 lacked overall support.

Both these proposals,Glamsterdam and Hegota, are due for evaluation on January 5. A consensus among the client teams remains a requirement for inclusion in any case. 

Ethereum seeking growth path

The update comes on the heels of the recently proposed on-chain gas futures market by Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin. This would help users and developers to prepay for transaction fees, hedging against unpredictable spikes. 

“A gas futures market would provide clearer market insights and let users plan ahead for future network costs,” Buterin explained. This idea could help developers and users handle unpredictable fees, especially during busy times, by letting them lock in prices in advance for more predictable costs. 

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