Ethereum 2026 Upgrades Boost Scalability

Ethereum is set to experience substantial scalability improvements in 2026, building on the groundwork laid in 2025. Key upgrades include the introduction of Block-level Access Lists (BALs), enabling parallelized block verification, and ePBS, which allows block execution to occupy a larger portion of the slot safely. Additionally, gas repricings will make slow operations more costly, facilitating a significant increase in the gas limit without exposing the network to DoS risks.

These enhancements are expected to multiply Ethereum’s execution capacity, potentially achieving a 27x gain. However, the improvements in calldata and state creation will be more modest. While ePBS and peer-to-peer broadcasting enhancements will boost calldata efficiency, the floor gas cost for calldata will rise. State creation remains challenging to scale, leading to a significant increase in its gas cost relative to other resources. Applications are encouraged to optimize by reducing state usage in favor of calldata and execution.