Ethereum Confirms Hegota Upgrade for 2026 – Here Is What Developers Are Planning Next

• Ethereum developers confirmed “Hegota” as the next major upgrade after Glamsterdam, scheduled for 2026.
• Early discussions focus on execution-layer efficiency, Verkle Trees, and long-term scaling research.
• Gas repricing and state growth management remain open questions, with decisions expected in early 2026.

Ethereum’s core developers have officially locked in the name for the next major network upgrade following Glamsterdam, and it will be called Hegota. The name is a blend of Bogota, representing the execution layer, and Heze, tied to the consensus layer, reflecting Ethereum’s ongoing effort to balance both sides of the protocol as it evolves.

The decision was finalized during All Core Devs – Execution call #226 on December 18, which also happened to be the final developer meeting of the year. With Glamsterdam already scheduled for 2026, Hegota fits neatly into Ethereum’s long-standing cadence of major upgrades every two years, keeping the roadmap predictable, even if the details are still forming.

What Hegota Is Likely to Focus On

While Hegota is still in its early planning phase, developers have already begun outlining areas of research that could shape the upgrade. One of the key themes discussed was continued work on Verkle Trees, particularly around how Ethereum manages state more efficiently at the execution layer.

The goal isn’t flashy features, at least not yet. It’s about making the network leaner, smarter, and more scalable under the hood. These kinds of changes rarely grab headlines, but they tend to matter a lot over time.

How Hegota Fits Into Ethereum’s 2026 Timeline

Developers also reviewed the holiday schedule and confirmed that several late-December meetings would be skipped. Regular calls are set to resume on January 5, 2026, along with a special out-of-cycle execution call focused on closing out remaining decisions tied to Glamsterdam.

The idea is to start the new year with clarity. Locking down Glamsterdam’s scope early should help avoid the kind of drawn-out delays that have complicated past upgrades. Alongside that, developers revisited longer-term planning, including a zero-knowledge virtual machine roadmap that could influence Ethereum’s base layers well beyond 2026.

Scaling Pressure, Gas Changes, and State Growth

A large portion of the discussion centered on execution-layer scaling and gas economics. Ethereum currently operates around a ceiling of roughly 20 million gas per second, but developers are openly targeting something much closer to 60 million.

Getting there won’t be simple. It likely requires repricing certain operations and rethinking how state access costs are handled. Several Ethereum Improvement Proposals were reviewed, some of which could lower baseline transaction costs while making it more expensive to create new state, a tradeoff meant to slow long-term bloat.

Decisions around managing state growth weren’t finalized during this call. Instead, developers agreed to revisit those topics in early January, once everyone is back and focused. For now, Hegota is officially named, the roadmap is moving, and Ethereum’s 2026 upgrade cycle is quietly taking shape, piece by piece.

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