Vitalik Announces Ethereum Expansion Blueprint: Glamsterdam Changes Gas Mechanism, ZK-EVM Allows Nodes to Verify Without Re-Execution

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently published a detailed roadmap for Ethereum’s scalability plans. He emphasizes that scaling should not rely on a single solution but be divided into short-term and long-term phases, each addressing different bottlenecks.

In the short term, the focus is on the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade, which introduces parallel verification, ePBS, and dynamic Gas pricing. Long-term plans target phased deployment of ZK-EVM and Blobs reaching 8MB/s, ultimately enabling nodes to verify blocks without re-executing transactions.

Now, scaling.

There are two buckets here: short-term and long-term.

Short term scaling I’ve written about elsewhere. Basically:

• Block level access lists (coming in Glamsterdam) allow blocks to be verified in parallel.
• ePBS (coming in Glamsterdam) has many features, of…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 27, 2026

Short-term Scaling: Glamsterdam Upgrade

Vitalik focuses on the Glamsterdam upgrade to boost Ethereum’s performance without sacrificing decentralization. Four key reforms are involved:

Block-level Access Lists enable parallel verification. Currently, nodes process each transaction sequentially; this new mechanism allows nodes to verify different parts of a block simultaneously, significantly reducing validation time.

ePBS extends the block validation window. With the current 12-second block time, nodes often finish validation early for safety. ePBS allows the network to better utilize each time window, fitting more transactions into the same period.

Gas Repricing adjusts the cost of operations to better reflect their actual execution time, moving away from outdated historical pricing.

Finally, Multi-dimensional Gas differentiates resource consumption types to prevent a single Gas metric from misrepresenting actual costs, especially to control state bloat.

Multi-dimensional Gas and EVM Compatibility

Regarding implementation, Vitalik proposes a pragmatic phased approach. During Glamsterdam, the “state creation cost” will be separated from regular Gas, so that creating large contracts doesn’t count against the general Gas limit, supporting bigger contracts without increasing state bloat.

To ensure backward compatibility with EVM, he introduces a “reservoir” mechanism. This system ensures that subcalls and Gas operations continue to function correctly under the new pricing model, preventing existing smart contracts from breaking due to Gas rule changes.

Long-term Scaling: Phased Rollout of ZK-EVM + Blobs at 8MB/s

The long-term roadmap centers on ZK-EVM and Blobs.

For Blobs, Vitalik aims to iteratively develop PeerDAS technology to reach 8MB/s data availability. Block data will be stored directly in Blobs, enabling verification without full downloads, greatly reducing node resource requirements.

ZK-EVM will be deployed gradually. In 2026, about 5% of nodes will verify blocks with ZK-EVM; in 2027, this will expand further. The ultimate goal is a 3-of-5 multi-proof system, where only three out of five independent proofs are needed to confirm block validity.

• Short-term: Glamsterdam upgrade → parallel verification + ePBS + Gas repricing + multi-dimensional Gas
• Long-term: phased ZK-EVM deployment (2026→2027→multi-proof system)
• Long-term: Blobs reaching 8MB/s, enabling verification without full downloads

The ultimate goal of this multi-proof architecture is to allow nodes to verify block correctness without re-executing transactions, unlocking very high Gas limits while maintaining security. This means future Ethereum validators won’t need high-end hardware configurations.