Ethereum’s 2026 Makeover: Scaling, Power-Shifts, and the Road Ahead

Fusaka, PeerDAS, and the messy brilliance of more data

Ethereum recently finished a major upgrade called Fusaka that basically threw open the doors to move a lot more data through the system. Think of it as widening the highway for Layer 2 traffic: rollups like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base can shove more compressed transaction batches onto the main chain without choking it.

The star of the show is a thing called PeerDAS — a nerdy name, huge impact. It lets the chain confirm that data exists without forcing every single node to download mountains of bytes. That’s a big win for cost and capacity, but it’s not the end of the scaling story. The upgrade is a working first draft of data sharding, not the finished novel.

There are three awkward reality checks left to solve. First, the base layer still runs transactions one after another, so raw execution speed hasn’t magically exploded. Second, specialized block builders still pull down full data payloads even if validators don’t need to, which concentrates influence into a few hands as data volume grows. Third, Ethereum still uses a single global mempool, making every node see the same pending transactions — not exactly the most scalable social club.

So, Fusaka is the foundation — solid, smart, and intentionally incomplete. The plan is to keep tuning PeerDAS, scale it carefully, and use it to help Layer 2 networks grow. When ZK-EVMs mature, those tools could even be flipped inward to make the Layer 1 gas market faster. Translation: we’ve got the bones, now the surgery begins.

Glamsterdam, Verge, Purge, Splurge — the sequel trilogy

Next up is Glamsterdam, slated for 2026, and it’s the upgrade that makes Fusaka usable at scale instead of just impressive on paper. The headline move is enshrining proposer-builder separation (ePBS) into the protocol. In plain English: Ethereum is trying to yank block-construction power out of a tiny club of dominant builders and put the process under clearer rules, so validators can’t just be at the mercy of a handful of outfits bidding for influence.

Glamsterdam also brings block-level access lists. Builders must declare which parts of the state a block will touch before execution begins. That sounds dull, but it lets clients plan better, paves the way for smarter scheduling, and is a necessary step toward doing things in parallel instead of everything in one long line — essential when the data floodgate is open.

After that sits Verge, which leans on Verkle trees to shrink what nodes have to store. Instead of forcing every node to hoard the entire world’s state like a digital squirrel, Verkle proofs let nodes verify blocks with tiny receipts. This keeps node operation affordable and helps prevent the “only giant outfits can run a node” outcome — a core part of keeping Ethereum decentralized.

Finally, there’s a sequence of cleanup and polish phases: Purge will trim historical baggage and technical debt so the chain doesn’t get sluggish from its own past; Splurge is a grab-bag of UX and developer improvements like better account abstraction and smarter MEV handling. Together, these steps are less flashy than a one-line upgrade but far more important to make the system livable for everyone.

All of this is controversial because it reshuffles power and expectations. More data capacity without market and state-management fixes would have concentrated influence in builders. The new roadmap is Ethereum trying to have its cake and eat it too: massive Layer 2 throughput while keeping the base chain secure, cheap to validate, and open for anyone to join. Expect debates, drama, and lots of design iterations — and probably a few hot takes on social media.

Bottom line: Fusaka opened the gates; Glamsterdam and the follow-ups are the engineering and political scaffolding to make that capacity actually usable without turning the network into a few companies’ playground. It’s messy, ambitious, and kind of hilarious to watch — in a good way.