Ethereum lines up Glamsterdam for L1 capacity

Ethereum.org has published a developer-facing update on what has changed across the ecosystem since the 2021 to 2023 cycle. The most concrete roadmap point is the next named network upgrade: Glamsterdam, expected in the second half of 2026, with Block-level Access Lists and ePBS, short for enshrined proposer-builder separation, listed as headline items. The important fact is not a product launch. It is a protocol direction: Ethereum wants to make it safer to raise base-layer capacity, with the L1 gas limit moving from 60 million today toward roughly 200 million.

Block-level Access Lists, or BALs, are the easier part to explain. A block would carry a map of the accounts and storage locations it touches. Ethereum clients could use that map to prefetch data and execute more independent transactions in parallel. Raising the gas limit too aggressively can make blocks slower to verify, which increases pressure on node operators. BALs try to reduce that risk by giving execution software a clearer view of the work ahead. In other words, the extra capacity would come not only from a larger number, but from a more organized way to process Ethereum’s shared state.

The second headline, ePBS, is mostly an infrastructure change. Proposer-builder separation already exists outside the protocol: specialized builders often assemble blocks, while validators propose them. Enshrining the mechanism in the protocol is meant to remove a trust dependency and make the block-building market less dependent on informal arrangements. For an application developer, the direct surface change may be small. For the network, the issue is structural. If Ethereum raises L1 capacity, it also needs transaction inclusion to remain reliable and block construction to avoid becoming a fragile bottleneck.

The practical message for builders is broader than Glamsterdam itself. Ethereum.org tells developers not to design new applications as if every user will be a plain ECDSA account that already holds ETH before doing anything useful. Wallet-level batching, gas sponsorship, session keys, passkeys, and recovery flows are becoming normal parts of the account experience. After Glamsterdam, the roadmap points to Hegotá, with FOCIL, or Fork-choice enforced Inclusion Lists, selected as its headline feature. FOCIL is meant to make transaction inclusion more dependable by forcing inclusion decisions at specific points in consensus. The overall signal is clear: Ethereum is preparing more L1 capacity, but also a more usable account and inclusion model for everyday applications.