Ethereum’s Bid to Break Free from Bitcoin

While Bitcoin struggles with macroeconomic shock, Ethereum is doubling down on its technical evolution.

The “Glamsterdam” upgrade, scheduled for the first half of 2026, has entered its final testing phase. This hard fork is designed to be the “Great Decoupling” event.

By introducing Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS) and Block-Level Access Lists (EIP-7928), Ethereum aims to transition from a single-lane ledger into a parallel-processing powerhouse capable of 10,000+ transactions per second (TPS) on its base layer.

The strategic goal of Glamsterdam is to capture the burgeoning “Agentic Economy” — a world where AI agents perform millions of micro-transactions that Bitcoin‘s architecture simply cannot handle. By raising the gas limit to 200 million and lowering the hardware requirements for nodes, Ethereum is positioning itself as the “Operating System” of the internet, distinct from Bitcoin’s “Digital Gold” narrative.

Market observers believe that if Glamsterdam successfully reduces mainnet congestion and stabilizes gas fees, ETH could finally break its price correlation with BTC.

Investors are already looking toward the end of Q1 2026 for a potential “pre-fork” rally, similar to the run-up seen before the 2024 Dencun upgrade.