Ethereum is a proof-of-stake blockchain that runs smart contracts for thousands of apps and layer-2 networks. Its next upgrade, Glamsterdam, went live on a public testnet on 6 October 2026. Buy or sell ETH on NBX.
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Ethereum went live in 2015 as a blockchain that runs programs, not only payments. ETH pays for every transaction and contract call, and validators stake it to secure the network. Since The Merge in September 2022, Ethereum has used proof of stake instead of mining, which cut its energy use by more than 99% (source: ethereum.org).
Validators stake ETH to propose and attest to blocks, and earn rewards in return. A validator that breaks protocol rules can be slashed and lose part of its stake. Since the Pectra upgrade in May 2025, one validator can hold up to 2,048 ETH.
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) runs smart contracts the same way on every node. Many layer-2 networks and other blockchains are EVM-compatible, so the same contracts and tools work across them.
Every transaction pays a base fee in ETH that is burned, plus an optional tip to the validator. When activity is high, more ETH can be burned than is issued and supply shrinks. When activity is low, supply grows.
Anyone can propose a change as an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP). Proposals are debated in public forums and on All Core Devs calls, and changes go ahead on rough consensus: broad agreement among client teams, researchers and the community, without a formal vote. An upgrade goes live when node operators run the new software.
Ethereum scales in two ways: more room on the main chain, and cheaper data for the layer-2 rollups built on top of it. Fusaka delivered the data side in December 2025. Glamsterdam is next and is being tested in public now. No mainnet date has been set.
Glamsterdam brings two main changes. Enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS) moves block building into the protocol itself, and block-level access lists let clients process transactions in parallel. Together they let the network carry much larger blocks. Read EIP-7928
After Glamsterdam activated on Sepolia, the block gas limit there rose from about 60 million to nearly 200 million. The upgrade also changes the gas cost of some operations, so teams whose contracts depend on specific gas costs should retest them. Ethereum Foundation blog
Rollups such as Arbitrum, Optimism and Base process transactions off the main chain and post the data back to Ethereum. Blobs, added in 2024, give rollups a cheaper place for that data, and Fusaka raised how many blobs fit in each block. Compare rollups on L2BEAT
Pectra in May 2025 let regular wallets act like smart contract accounts and raised the validator balance limit. Fusaka in December 2025 added PeerDAS, so nodes check rollup data by sampling it instead of downloading all of it. Fusaka announcement
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For illustration only. Does not include fees or tax. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Crypto is high risk. Prices can swing hard in a single day, and you can lose some or all of what you put in. Only put in what you could afford to lose.
Independent documentation and upgrade resources from across the Ethereum ecosystem. These are external sites not operated by NBX.
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Crypto is high risk. Prices can swing hard in a single day, and you can lose some or all of what you put in. Only put in what you could afford to lose.
Ethereum is a proof-of-stake blockchain that launched in 2015. It runs smart contracts, which are programs that execute the same way on every node. ETH, its native token, pays transaction fees and is staked by validators to secure the network.
A smart contract is a program stored on Ethereum that runs automatically when set conditions are met, for example releasing a payment once a delivery is confirmed. Every node runs it the same way, so no middleman is needed to enforce it. Stablecoins, ERC-20 tokens, NFTs, lending apps and decentralised exchanges are all built from smart contracts.
Vitalik Buterin first described Ethereum in a 2013 paper. He launched it with a group of co-founders that included Gavin Wood, who later founded Polkadot, Joseph Lubin, who founded ConsenSys, and Charles Hoskinson, who later founded Cardano. A crowdsale in 2014 raised over $18 million, and the network went live on 30 July 2015.
Glamsterdam is Ethereum's next network upgrade. It adds enshrined proposer-builder separation and block-level access lists, which together let the network process more transactions per block. It went live on the Sepolia testnet on 6 October 2026, and the Hoodi testnet is tentatively next on 27 October. Developers are targeting the fourth quarter of 2026 for mainnet, but no date has been set.
If your ETH is on NBX, no. A network upgrade does not change your ETH balance. Node operators and validators update their client software, and developers retest contracts that depend on specific gas costs.
Bitcoin is built mainly as digital money with a fixed supply of 21 million coins, secured by proof of work. Ethereum is built to run programs, so it supports applications such as stablecoins, decentralised exchanges and tokenised assets, and it is secured by proof of stake.
Rollups are layer-2 networks that process transactions off Ethereum's main chain and post the data back to it. They rely on Ethereum for security and usually charge lower fees. Arbitrum, Optimism and Base are examples.
No. New ETH is issued to validators, and part of every transaction fee is burned. Whether supply grows or shrinks depends on how busy the network is.
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