Layla Zulfa
Ethereum’s ongoing evolution continues to be meticulously steered by its core development teams, with recent All Core Developer (ACD) calls highlighting both the intricate challenges of current upgrades and the strategic planning for future enhancements. The "Checkpoint" series, designed to offer high-level periodic updates on core development, reveals a deliberate but sometimes slow progression, particularly with the impending Glamsterdam upgrade, while simultaneously outlining the ambitious roadmap for Hegotá and beyond. These updates provide crucial insights into the technical hurdles, community priorities, and the collaborative process driving the world’s leading smart contract platform.
Glamsterdam: A Deep Dive into Enshrined PBS and Gas Repricing
The implementation of Glamsterdam, Ethereum’s next major network upgrade, is currently underway, characterized by a steady but deliberate pace. The full scope of features being considered and scheduled for Glamsterdam is meticulously tracked on Forkcast, a dedicated platform for Ethereum upgrade information. Features designated as "Scheduled for Inclusion" (SFI) are near-certain candidates for the upgrade, while those "Considered for Inclusion" (CFI) are highly probable but subject to implementation complexity and compatibility with other scheduled features. This staging process, while under continuous refinement, reflects the rigorous due diligence applied to every proposed change.
A central, and indeed most challenging, component of the Glamsterdam upgrade is the introduction of Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS). This architectural shift aims to mitigate the adverse effects of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) by formally integrating the roles of block proposer and block builder directly into the protocol’s consensus mechanism. Historically, MEV extraction—where validators reorder, insert, or censor transactions to maximize profit—has occurred largely outside the protocol. ePBS seeks to bring this critical function on-chain, thereby enhancing network decentralization, fairness, and censorship resistance. The complexity arises from the need to re-architect how blocks are constructed and validated, fundamentally altering the interaction between proposers and builders. This requires every layer of the Ethereum stack to understand and handle "partial blocks" and the nuanced coordination between two distinct parties, a change that permeates nearly every aspect of the protocol. Developers are grappling with the intricacies of designing a robust system that can handle potential disagreements or failures between these two entities, ensuring network stability and security.
Beyond ePBS, Glamsterdam is set to include several crucial gas repricings. These adjustments are designed to optimize network efficiency, ensure fairer transaction costs, and address historical imbalances in gas consumption across various operations. Many of these repricings are being bundled together, as seen with EIP-8007, to streamline their implementation. The rationale behind gas repricing is to better align the cost of executing operations with their actual resource consumption on the network, thereby preventing spam, encouraging efficient smart contract design, and improving overall network health.
Another significant feature gaining traction is EIP-7954, which proposes an increase to the maximum contract size. This enhancement is particularly important for developers building increasingly complex decentralized applications (dApps) on Ethereum. Larger contract sizes allow for more sophisticated logic and functionality to be deployed directly on the blockchain, reducing the need for multi-contract architectures or off-chain computations. The ecosystem’s developers have been vocal in advocating for this change, underscoring its importance for innovation and flexibility within the network.
On the execution layer, Block-level Access Lists (BALs), outlined in EIP-7928, represent a fundamental re-evaluation of how gas and state access are managed. BALs aim to improve transaction processing efficiency and predictability by providing pre-declared lists of state accesses, allowing for more efficient parallel execution and reducing gas refunds. Devnets, which are isolated development networks, are currently making predictable but challenging progress in integrating BALs, highlighting the profound technical depth required for these changes.
The development roadmap for Glamsterdam involves a series of critical steps. Developers are aiming for the launch of the first generalized Glamsterdam devnet in the near future, contingent on the stabilization of the current ePBS-focused devnet. This will be followed by several iterations of devnets, progressively incorporating more of the non-headliner features. Once a stable devnet, encompassing all planned features, is achieved, client releases will be cut, followed by rigorous security reviews. The upgrade will then move to public testnets for extensive community testing and validation. Only after these testnets are confirmed stable and robust will the official mainnet fork date for Glamsterdam be announced. While the initial swiftness of previous upgrades like Fusaka spurred optimism for faster development cycles, Glamsterdam’s ambitious and fundamental changes mean a Q2 mainnet launch appears increasingly unlikely, signaling a pragmatic approach to ensure stability and security over speed.
Hegotá: FOCIL, Account Abstraction, and Quantum Resistance
Looking beyond Glamsterdam, the next major upgrade, codenamed Hegotá, is already taking shape. The selection process for its headline features has concluded, with EIP-7805, known as FOCIL (Forward-Compatible Object-Centric Identity Layer), chosen as the consensus layer headliner. FOCIL aims to enhance the protocol’s capabilities for managing identities and object states, paving the way for more sophisticated and flexible on-chain interactions.
The execution layer feature selection for Hegotá saw a particularly "heated debate" surrounding proposals for Account Abstraction (AA). While widely recognized for its potential to significantly improve user experience by enabling smart contract accounts to function like externally owned accounts (EOAs), thereby allowing for features like multi-signature wallets, social recovery, and custom authentication logic without protocol-level changes to EOAs, a lack of consensus on specific implementation choices led to the primary proposal, EIP-8141 ("Frame transactions"), being moved to "Considered for Inclusion" (CFI) status as a non-headliner. This decision reflects a commitment to integrate Account Abstraction but underscores the complexity of finding a universally supported and secure approach. The community’s strong desire for AA remains a driving force, and efforts will continue to refine proposals that can garner broader support among client developers and the wider community. This demonstrates Ethereum’s decentralized governance in action, where major protocol changes require broad agreement.
There is also a growing interest within the Ethereum community and among developers to prioritize quantum resistance. The advent of quantum computing poses a long-term existential threat to current cryptographic primitives, including those securing blockchain transactions. While no standalone quantum resistance proposal has yet been formally introduced, several Account Abstraction proposals have begun to integrate quantum-resistant features as part of broader packages. This indicates a forward-thinking approach to future-proofing the network against emerging technological threats, even if a dedicated EIP is yet to materialize.
The process for proposing non-headlining features for Hegotá has been formally opened, commencing on April 9th. Community members and developers are invited to submit their EIPs by pulling them into the "Proposed for Inclusion" section of the fork’s meta EIP (EIP-8081). The closing date for these submissions will be announced with at least two weeks’ notice, providing ample time for new proposals. Comprehensive and up-to-date information on Hegotá’s development process and timeline is continuously maintained on its dedicated Forkcast page. The ultimate timeline for Hegotá’s mainnet launch remains heavily dependent on the progress and successful deployment of Glamsterdam, highlighting the sequential nature of major network upgrades.
Underlying Infrastructure: Gas Limit Enhancements
A critical aspect of Ethereum’s scalability strategy involves increasing the network’s gas limit. Developers are continuously testing higher gas limits on devnets, with an immediate target baseline of 60 million gas for Glamsterdam and subsequent upgrades. The current network gas limit, typically around 30 million, restricts the number of transactions and the complexity of operations that can be processed within a single block. By increasing this limit, Ethereum aims to enhance its transaction throughput and reduce congestion, directly impacting user fees and network responsiveness.
Testing is not limited to the 60M target; engineers are exploring even higher limits to thoroughly understand the implications and identify necessary optimizations. This proactive approach ensures that any increase in the gas limit is implemented safely, without compromising network stability or increasing the risk of denial-of-service attacks. Much of the gas repricing work currently being implemented in Glamsterdam is foundational to enabling these safely higher limits, as it ensures that the cost of operations accurately reflects their computational burden, thus preventing network abuse even with increased capacity. The ongoing testing underscores a commitment to incremental and secure scaling.
Empowering Community Participation: The EIP Champion’s Handbook and Strawmap
To foster greater community involvement and streamline the proposal process, new resources have been published on the Protocol Support team website. The EIP Champions Handbook serves as a comprehensive guide for authors and advocates looking to champion new feature proposals and solicit feedback from stakeholders. This resource demystifies the complex process of getting a feature integrated into an Ethereum upgrade, providing invaluable assistance for those navigating the EIP lifecycle. By empowering more individuals to contribute, the Ethereum ecosystem benefits from a wider range of innovative ideas and collaborative development.
Furthermore, the "strawmap," an unofficial but influential guideline published earlier this year, has reignited enthusiasm for a clearer strategic direction within Ethereum’s development. While not an official roadmap, it provides a beneficial framework that helps inform feature choices during the upgrade process. The strawmap serves as a community-driven consensus document that can assist in aligning priorities and guiding discussions among developers, researchers, and stakeholders, ensuring that development efforts are directed towards the most impactful and widely supported improvements.
Broader Implications and Future Outlook
The current phase of Ethereum development, particularly with Glamsterdam, underscores the inherent challenges of evolving a global, decentralized platform. The architectural overhaul required for ePBS is a monumental task, impacting fundamental aspects of block production and consensus. While this has led to a slower pace than some might have anticipated, the commitment of client developers remains unwavering, driven by the long-term vision of a more decentralized, secure, and scalable Ethereum. The resilience demonstrated in tackling these "tricky" feature changes is a testament to the robust and dedicated core development community.
The selection of a single headliner for Hegotá, FOCIL, coupled with the commitment to Account Abstraction as a non-headliner, suggests a strategic balancing act. It aims to accelerate the delivery of the next upgrade while allowing more time for critical, yet complex, features like AA to mature through further community consensus and technical refinement. It remains possible that a widely supported Account Abstraction proposal could be promoted to headliner status in Hegotá, reflecting its significant importance to user experience and broader adoption.
The continuous testing of higher gas limits and the strategic guidance offered by resources like the EIP Champions Handbook and the strawmap collectively point towards a future Ethereum that is not only more performant and user-friendly but also more inclusive in its governance and development. The challenges faced today are integral to building a more robust and resilient blockchain for tomorrow, solidifying Ethereum’s position at the forefront of decentralized innovation.
Relevant All Core Developer (ACD) Calls:
[ January 21st – April 9th ]
ACDT (All Core Developers – Testnets) Calls:
ACDC (All Core Developers – Consensus) Calls:
ACDE (All Core Developers – Execution) Calls:
