Ethereum’s Hegota Upgrade: Slashing State Bloat, Supercharging Decentralization (2026)

Planned for the second half of 2026, Ethereum's next large hard fork, Hegota, marks one of the most important steps towards correcting the network's persistent state bloat problem. Together with consensus-layer enhancements (“Heze"), Hegota presents Verkle Trees—a groundbreaking new data structure—alongside state and history expiry systems by fusing execution-layer improvements (codename “Bogota”). Together, these modifications are meant to greatly lower the amount of data full nodes need to verify and store.

A possible ~90% decrease in storage and bandwidth needs for operating a whole node results from the headline influence. Operating their own nodes should become much simpler and less expensive for people, little teams, and community members thanks to this huge efficiency gain, therefore enhancing Ethereum's decentralization and resilience. Simultaneously, the far leaner state layer sets important foundation for upcoming scalability leaps, including considerably higher gas restrictions (aiming at roughly 60 megagas/second in the long-term roadmap) without jeopardizing safety.

Hegota offers regular consumers more consistent gas costs and a solid basis for quick, affordable Layer 2 experiences. For developers, DeFi systems, real-world asset projects, and financial organizations, the update offers a more effective, scalable base layer—strengthening Ethereum as the preferred settlement network for serious on-chain finance and tokenization while keeping the network mainly decentralized.