Vitalik Buterin outlined Ethereum upgrades related to the upcoming Gramsterdam hard fork.
Development is generally aimed at improving scalability, security, and user experience on blockchain.
Following widespread market events, ETH has fallen below $2,000.
Ethereum creator and co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined eight Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that will make up the Gramsterdam hard fork, scheduled for the first half of 2026.
Ethereum: 2026 Gramsterdam Hard Fork
This proposal follows Ethereum’s three-part roadmap laid out in the 2025 Predictable Engineering Delivery Model and consists of:
- Scalability.
- Improved user experience.
- Enhanced security, censorship resistance, and quantum resistance.
More specifically, block construction will now occur directly on Ethereum rather than an external relay. This increases validator decentralization and transaction validation time.
Additionally, this upgrade paves the way for parallel block validation, effectively increasing the network’s transaction processing speed. Users will also see a 78.6% reduction in gas fees for both simple and complex smart contracts and will be able to run nodes with lower bandwidth.
Meanwhile, developers will be financially incentivized to write leaner code on top of the network’s database (aka “nation”). It also reduces memory-related errors that occur during code compilation, reducing smart contract security risks.
Source: CoinMarketCap