Developers confirm Hegota as Ethereum's key upgrade for 2026. It will introduce Verkle Trees and state expiration to optimize the network and reduce operating costs.
The roadmap for the most widely used blockchain for smart contracts continues its evolution with technical precision, aiming to redefine its long-term infrastructure. Ethereum core developers have officially confirmed the name of the upgrade scheduled for the second half of 2026. It is called Hegota, this hard fork This represents a decisive step in the development phase known as The Verge y "The Purge"focusing almost exclusively on storage efficiency and network operational lightness.
Access Bit2Me and trade ETH todayEthereum accelerates with Hegota on the horizon
Ethereum developers met in recent technical sessions to set the essential parameters for the next step in the protocol.
The community is still digesting the impacts of past updates such as Spectra y Fusakawhile anticipating what will come GlamsterdamBut network engineers are already turning their attention to a persistent challenge in blockchain technology.
The enormous volume of historical data that accumulates necessitates the use of increasingly powerful hardware to validate transactions, creating a real risk of centralization. Hegota addresses this fundamental problem through advanced mathematics and refined memory management techniques, drastically reducing storage demands and enabling nodes with common hardware to seamlessly integrate into the network.
The name Hegota derives from the combination of the update "Bogotá", which will be implemented in the execution layer, and of "Heze", the name of a star, which has been used to name the update in the consensus layer.
The Silent Revolution of the Verkle Trees
The central component of this update lies in the implementation of the Verkle TreesA data structure that promises to replace or substantially improve upon current Merkle trees. To the average user, this may sound like dense cryptographic jargon, but its impact on network economics is tangible.
Verkle trees allow for a drastic reduction in the tests required to verify a block of transactions. This means that the amount of data a node needs to process to confirm that a transaction is legitimate is significantly reduced.
Ethereum's scalability depends heavily on how quickly and cheaply it can process these blocks. With current technology, proof files are large and require considerable bandwidth. Therefore, Hegota will introduce a scheme where these proofs are so lightweight that they will open the door to a new category of network participants. The resulting efficiency gains will not only be a speed improvement, but also a re-engineering of how the network "remembers" and validates its own history without needing to consult an entire data library every time a single cent is moved.
Join Bit2Me and trade EthereumHegota lightens the blockchain network
Another fundamental pillar that Hegota will put on the table is the mechanism of expiration of the stateBlockchains have an inherent problem: by design, they never forget anything. Every transaction, smart contract, and balance since the genesis block accumulates, creating a global state that grows indefinitely. This phenomenon, known as state bloat or "state bloat"This forces infrastructure operators to constantly invest in storage.
The state expiration proposal seeks to change this dynamic by allowing inactive or very old data to cease being the immediate responsibility of active nodes.
Information that hasn't been accessed for an extended period, such as a year, could be placed in an inactive state. If a user needs to revive that data, they would simply present a cryptographic proof to bring it back into active operation. This approach maintains the network's security and immutability while freeing the daily operations from carrying the burden of years of inactive history, ensuring the protocol remains agile regardless of how many decades pass.
Use ETH without complications, from Bit2MeDemocratizing access through stateless clients
The ultimate goal of combining Verkle Trees and state expiration in Ethereum is to realize the concept of stateless clients or "stateless clients"In the current ecosystem, setting up a full node is a technically and financially demanding task that discourages enthusiasts and concentrates power in the hands of large cloud service providers. Hegota aims to lower the barriers to entry to the point where much more modest consumer devices can actively participate in network security.
Thanks to this update, validator nodes will be able to verify blocks without needing to download and store the entire Ethereum state database.
By receiving small, manageable proofs, a validator can confirm the legitimacy of transactions almost instantly. This will not only reduce operating costs for existing participants but also strengthen decentralization by allowing a greater diversity of geographic and economic actors to join the network without relying on industrial-grade hardware.
The vision is that Ethereum's security should not depend on a few massive data centers, but on a distributed and resilient network capable of operating with minimal resources.
Join Bit2Me and start trading ETHFrom Glamsterdam to Hegota: the rapid evolution of Ethereum
Hegota, the update that It will come after Glamsterdam, represents the result of years of advancements focused on making storage more sustainable and transaction validation significantly more efficient.
By prioritizing sustainable storage and efficient validation, Ethereum is preparing to support not only the current volume of financial transactions, but also a digitized global economy that will demand performance that current systems cannot deliver. The transition to this new architecture will require a coordinated hard fork, a procedure that, while complex, has proven to be the most effective tool for the protocol's evolution.
With Hegota, the network not only seeks to be faster, but to become lightweight enough to remain decentralized in perpetuity.
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