Ethereum core developers locked in “Hegota” as the network’s next major upgrade after Glamsterdam and sketched a late-2026 target, tightening the chain’s scaling calendar. They reached the naming decision on Dec. 18 during All Core Devs Execution call #226 and the Ethereum Foundation followed on Dec. 22 with a Hegota upgrade timeline on its blog, while CoinDesk reported that developers aim for the second half of 2026. ETH traded near $2,937 on Dec. 28, up about 0.2% over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
The decision slots Hegota behind Glamsterdam, the execution-focused hard fork that client teams still plan for the first half of 2026. Outlets including ForkLog, Yellow and The Block all frame Hegota as the second of two protocol upgrades in 2026 under Ethereum’s twice-yearly cadence that started with 2025’s Pectra and Fusaka forks.
Concrete dates for Hegota’s scope
The Foundation’s timeline post turns Hegota from a name into a schedule. Headliner EIP proposals open on Jan. 8 and close on Feb. 4 on the Ethereum Magicians forum. Core developers will use All Core Devs calls between Feb. 5 and Feb. 26 to debate those candidates, then run a 30 day window for smaller “non headliner” changes through the Hegota meta EIP.
The meta proposal itself still lists items in early stages rather than as scheduled, so scope remains open. ForkLog calls Verkle trees the leading candidate for Hegota’s main feature set, with history and state expiry and additional execution layer tweaks also under discussion. Those pieces all target state bloat and validator resource pressure.
Throughput ambitions meet validator risk
Developers are not just naming forks. They are tightening an aggressive capacity plan. Yellow notes that Ethereum validators already accepted a 60 million gas limit by November, up from 30 million at the start of 2025, and that core teams aim for 80 million after a Jan. 7 blob parameter hard fork and roughly 180 million by late 2026.
The Fusaka upgrade, which shipped on Dec. 3 with PeerDAS support according to the Foundation’s own Hegota post and related documentation, opened a path to raise blob throughput in steps. A CryptoSlate analysis describes two tracks for 2026: more blob space for rollups and higher base layer gas limits once validators verify zero knowledge execution proofs instead of re-running every transaction.
The Foundation set the technical bar for that shift in its July 10 “Realtime Proving” post, which laid out targets for zkEVM proofs under 10 seconds, with at least 100 to 128 bit security, proof sizes under 300 KiB and hardware that solo stakers can run for under $100,000 and 10 kW of power, all on open source stacks. The Dec. 18 follow up on zkEVM security foundations at blog.ethereum.org and its sequel says the zkEVM effort now hits those realtime goals across multiple proving stacks.
That pace removes one bottleneck and exposes another. CryptoSlate argues that the 2026 roadmap now leans on the proving market and on validator operations that must keep up with much higher gas limits without breaking liveness.
“The planned jump in capacity relies on a fragile shift to ZK-proof verification that could buckle under network stress,” the outlet warned.
The same piece walks through gas limit scenarios around 60 million, 120 million and 200 million gas, translating those into rough transactions per second at common gas costs. It points out that even the current 60 million level already tests mempools, block propagation and MEV pipelines, and that higher limits will only stay safe if validators switch from re-execution to proof verification at scale.
What late-2026 Hegota means for ETH traders
Hegota’s branding alone does not ship code. Paired with the Foundation’s dated proposal windows, it gives traders and builders a concrete sequence to track. Jan. 8 to Feb. 4 locks in candidates for Hegota’s main feature set. February All Core Devs calls decide the headliner. The second half of 2026 targets activation shortly after Glamsterdam, according to CoinDesk and ForkLog.
If headliners land around Verkle trees, state expiry and higher gas limits, Hegota will decide how much of Ethereum’s scaling story lives on L1 versus rollups and how costly it is to run a full node. That choice feeds directly into long term fee markets, MEV capture and hardware expectations for solo stakers.
For now ETH trades as if the new schedule is orderly rather than urgent. Any hint in early 2026 that headliner proposals stall or that realtime proving falls short of expectations will turn Hegota from a branding exercise into a live risk event for the asset.
