The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has reached critical development milestones for its upcoming “Glamsterdam” upgrade while initiating a major leadership transition within its Protocol Cluster.
In a recent update, the Foundation confirmed that the multi-client Glamsterdam development network is now live, marking a significant step toward the network’s next major hard fork following the 2025 Fusaka upgrade.
As part of this move, the Foundation named Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik Svantes as the new co-leads for the Protocol Cluster. Longtime contributors Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko are moving on from their roles, while researcher Alex Stokes has commenced a sabbatical.
Scalability targets and technical breakthroughs
The Glamsterdam upgrade is designed to fundamentally update how Ethereum creates and verifies blocks. A primary focus of the fork is Layer-1 scalability, with developers establishing a “credible post-Glamsterdam target” that includes a 200 million gas limit floor. This represents a transition from the current capacity, potentially boosting network throughput and transaction speed.
Testing during a recent engineering event in Svalbard, Norway, confirmed that enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS) is now running stably across multi-client environments. This mechanism is important for reducing risks tied to Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) concentration by separating block building from proposal duties. Additionally, EIP-8037 has reached finalization, further solidifying the upgrade’s technical roadmap.
Leadership transition and the road to Hegotá
The restructuring of the Protocol Cluster arrives as the EF channels its focus toward long-term infrastructure modernization. Will Corcoran will oversee zkVM proving and post-quantum consensus, while Kev Wedderburn and Fredrik Svantes will lead zkEVM development and protocol security, respectively.
While Glamsterdam remains the immediate priority, the EF is already scoping the subsequent “Hegotá” upgrade, planned for later in 2026. Hegotá is expected to serve as a “cleanup and optimization” fork, incorporating features like Verkle Trees and expanded account abstraction that were moved to ensure Glamsterdam remains manageable. This generational transition in leadership signals a new chapter for Ethereum as it balances rapid scaling with decentralized security.
Ethereum’s quantum‑resistance roadmap
Vitalik Buterin earlier identified four “quantum-vulnerable” Ethereum components: consensus BLS signatures, KZG data-availability blobs, EOA ECDSA signatures, and certain zero-knowledge proofs.
His roadmap proposes replacing BLS with quantum-safe hash-based “Lean” signatures, swapping KZG for STARK-based quantum-resistant proofs, and allowing flexible post-quantum signature schemes (like lattice-based) for accounts. The key risk for ETH and DeFi users is a potential window where quantum machines could exploit current ECDSA and BLS keys before the network completes its migration to post-quantum schemes.
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