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Successor Named: Ethereum core developers have named the post-Glamsterdam upgrade "Hegota," a blend of "Bogota" (Devcon host city) and "Heze" (a star).
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2026 Roadmap: The naming follows a move toward a twice-annual upgrade cycle; Glamsterdam is expected in early 2026, with Hegota likely landing in the second half.
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Key Targets: While specific proposals (EIPs) won't be finalized until February, Hegota is expected to focus on Verkle Trees, which are essential for creating "stateless clients."
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Addressing Bloat: The roadmap continues to tackle "state bloat"—the growing data storage burden on node operators—through planned mechanisms like state and history expiry.
Hegota: The Next Phase of Ethereum's Evolution
Ethereum developers have officially designated "Hegota" as the second major network upgrade for 2026. The decision was made during the final All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) call of 2025. Hegota serves as the successor to Glamsterdam, the network's first scheduled 2026 fork, as Ethereum settles into a steady rhythm of two iterative improvements per year.
Statelessness and Verkle Trees
The primary focus of the 2026 upgrades remains The Verge, a roadmap phase aimed at making Ethereum nodes lighter. Hegota is a leading candidate for the integration of Verkle Trees, a technical milestone that would allow users to verify the blockchain without storing the entire state. This transition is vital for long-term decentralization, as it reduces the hardware requirements for node operators and combats the steady expansion of "state bloat."
Refining the Builder Ecosystem
While Hegota is in early planning, work on the earlier Glamsterdam fork continues. That upgrade is set to focus on Layer 1 efficiency and builder decentralization. Key proposals include enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS) to curb centralization in block building and gas repricings to better align costs with actual resource usage. Any items deemed too complex for Glamsterdam are expected to roll over into the newly named Hegota cycle.
