Ethereum’s Hegota Hard Fork Scheduled for Late 2026

Ethereum's Hegota update follows Glamsterdam, set for late 2026.

Ethereum developers have selected a name for the update following the Glamsterdam hard fork. The upgrade, dubbed Hegota, is slated for release in the latter half of 2026.

Hegota combines the name of the city Bogotá (in honour of the Devcon venue) and the star Heze. This decision was made at the final All Core Developers Execution meeting of the year. The next developer meeting is scheduled for January 5.

The network has adopted a biannual upgrade schedule. Following the 2025 hard forks Pectra and Fusaka, Glamsterdam is expected in the first half of 2026, with Hegota to follow in the second half.

This approach allows for gradual and predictable changes, avoiding rare and large-scale protocol overhauls, experts noted.

Technical Details

The main improvement proposal for Hegota will be chosen no earlier than February. The leading candidate is the introduction of Verkle trees—a data structuring algorithm in the protocol similar to Merkle trees.

Discussions include mechanisms for expiring history and state storage, as well as additional execution layer optimisations. The network “bloat” issue is becoming increasingly pressing for node operators.

Preparation for Glamsterdam

Work on the first upgrade of 2026 is ongoing. Potential innovations include:

• ePBS: separation of block proposers and builders at the protocol level to reduce centralisation;
• access lists: optimisation of network state access;
• gas re-evaluation: adjustment of operation costs in the EVM.

Complex changes, such as reducing slot time, have been postponed. If any aspects of Glamsterdam prove too challenging, they will be included in Hegota, developers stated.

Earlier, on December 3, the Fusaka update was successfully deployed on the Ethereum mainnet. The full implementation of the upgrade concluded on December 5.