This month, Ethereum developers reached a consensus on the name and general timeline for the network’s upcoming second major upgrade, dubbed “Hegota.” This upgrade is planned for 2026 and marks a significant step in the blockchain’s progression.
Hegota is set to follow “Glamsterdam,” the expected major upgrade coming in early 2026. With this timeline, Hegota is anticipated to occur in the latter half of the year, reflecting a quicker pace of protocol upgrades than what has traditionally been seen with Ethereum.
The decision demonstrates a newer strategy in Ethereum’s development, encouraging core contributors to implement changes more regularly instead of consolidating numerous upgrades into annual releases. This change followed criticisms from segments of the Ethereum community, pointing out that the pace of protocol development wasn’t keeping up with the network’s fast growth and evolving needs.
Developers plan to finalize Glamsterdam’s full scope in their upcoming meeting in early January. Therefore, significant changes, known as Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), related to Hegota are unlikely to be revealed until at least February. Speculation about potential features for the upgrade, however, has already begun.
One potential source for Hegota’s features could be elements deferred from Glamsterdam. In previous upgrades, EIPs that couldn’t be included due to time constraints or complexity were often carried over to the next iteration, and developers anticipate a similar situation now.
Initial conversations regarding Hegota have highlighted Verkle Trees, which are designed to enhance the efficiency with which Ethereum nodes manage and verify vast data sets. If introduced, Verkle Trees could greatly lessen the hardware demands on node operators, thus fostering decentralization by making node operation accessible to more participants.
In keeping with Ethereum’s tradition of naming upgrades after Devcon host cities combined with celestial bodies, “Hegota” merges the influences of “Bogota,” the execution layer upgrade, and “Heze,” the consensus layer upgrade.
In a recent blog post, the Ethereum Foundation announced, “Fusaka shipped PeerDAS alongside numerous minor updates, and Glamsterdam’s major features will include Block-level Access Lists and enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation. We now begin outlining the next upgrade: Hegota.”
For further details, see: Ethereum’s ‘Glamsterdam’ upgrade aims to address MEV fairness.
