Primary highlights
- Within the newest podcast, Tomasz Kajetan Stańczak revealed that builders will concentrate on: L1 scaling and organizational privateness in 2026
- Beforehand, Vitalik Buterin urged the group to concentrate on long-term objectives as an alternative of following the most recent traits.
- Two main arduous forks, Gramsterdam in mid-2026 and Hegota in late 2026, are designed to boost Ethereum’s capability.
In a current interview on the ETHPanda Speak Podcast, Tomasz Kajetan Stańczak, the newly appointed co-executive director of the Ethereum Basis, shared necessary particulars about new developments subsequent yr in 2026.
Tomasz Stanczak: Ethereum will concentrate on L1 scaling and organizational privateness in 2026
In an interview with ETHPanda Speak, Nethermind founder Tomasz Stanczak revealed that whereas researcher Dankrad Feist believes L1 scaling remains to be in its infancy, Ethereum is shifting its focus to quicker… pic.twitter.com/WqHGVOg7QO
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) January 2, 2026
Stańczak, founding father of main growth group Nethermind, stated that whereas layer 1 scaling stays an “unfinished” problem, as Ethereum researcher Dankrad Feist identified, the muse is now focusing its new yr on two key areas, together with quicker transactions and improved privateness options.
These priorities will assist meet the rising calls for of institutional customers who require each confidentiality and safe funds.
Tomasz Kajetan Stańczak’s assertion indicators a brand new yr technique wherein builders plan to steadiness enterprise-level necessities with scalability. His transfer from bootstrapping Nethermind, the place he has contributed to necessary tasks akin to Flashbots and the Starknet Basis, to a management function on the Ethereum Basis indicators a concerted effort to streamline key developments. The plan is to make it suitable with new applied sciences akin to synthetic intelligence.
This interview began a dialogue within the crypto group concerning the evolving function of foundations.
Vitalik Buterin urges renewed concentrate on decentralization and resilience
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has additionally been vocal concerning the necessary evolution of the community. In a chat at Devconnect Buenos Aires in late 2025, Buterin shared quite a few upcoming Ethereum Enchancment Proposals (EIPs) geared toward safely growing the community’s capability whereas sustaining its decentralized nature.
(Supply: Vitalik Buterin of X)
Buterin primarily highlighted proposer-builder separation (PBS) and block-level entry lists (BAL) as main upgrades that may guarantee fuel limits may be raised by the top of 2026 and make the community stronger.
Vitalik Buterin has issued a grave warning as 2026 begins, urging the group to refocus on Ethereum’s unique plan as a censorship-resistant “world pc.” He argued that with out built-in privateness protections, customers may flee to centralized options that higher defend their monetary knowledge.
Buterin additionally launched sensible “walk-away testing” for functions. This take a look at raises questions on whether or not they may proceed to work if the unique developer is gone or if a significant centralized service like Cloudflare fails.
Individually, he raised main issues about quantum computing, warning that present elliptic curve cryptography might be damaged by the 2028 US presidential election. Subsequently, there’s an pressing must improve quantum efficiency inside 4 years.
In an announcement, he urged the group to concentrate on key objectives moderately than chasing the most recent traits. he stated:Ethereum must do extra to realize the objectives it has set for itself. Whether or not it is tokenized {dollars} or political meme cash, it isn’t a quest to ‘win within the subsequent meta’. ”
“zkEVM has exploded previous efficiency milestones, and with zkEVM and PeerDAS, Ethereum has taken its largest step in the direction of a basically new and extra highly effective sort of blockchain,” he stated.
Glamsteldam and Hegota arduous fork
In its newest revelation, the Ethereum group revealed two main arduous forks deliberate for 2026.
The primary one is named ““Gramsteldam” is deliberate for mid-2026. This improve focuses on dramatically enhancing total execution. Parallel transaction processing shall be launched and the layer 1 fuel restrict shall be considerably elevated from 100 million in the direction of 200 million. With this, validators start to maneuver in the direction of verifying zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs.
These adjustments, together with the implementation of EIP-7928 for block entry lists, are anticipated to extend Layer 1 transaction capability towards 10,000 transactions per second (TPS). Rising the variety of knowledge “blobs” per block additional helps layer 2 networks.
The second fork, presently known as “Hegota,” is focused for late 2026. This improve is predicted to develop fundamental privateness primitives immediately into the protocol and enhance censorship resistance via mechanisms akin to FOCIL to ingest transactions extra rapidly.
Additionally learn: Ethereum community sees adjustments in staking conduct as entry queues develop bigger than exits
