The Ethereum Foundation’s Protocol Cluster has published its first unified assessment of all 62 EIPs proposed for Hegotá, placing them into tiers based on their importance, technical readiness, security implications and alignment with Ethereum’s longer-term protocol roadmap.

The exercise brought together roughly 60 researchers and engineers across nine Protocol teams, along with individual domain experts. In total, contributors submitted 397 individual grades, before disputed proposals were discussed through several cluster-wide sessions.

FOCIL and Frames Become Hegotá’s Core

Only two proposals received the highest S-tier classification: EIP-7805, Fork-choice Enforced Inclusion Lists or FOCIL, and EIP-8141, Frame Transactions. S-tier essentially means must ship.

According to the Protocol Cluster, these proposals define the fork itself. If either runs into serious implementation problems, developers should reconsider the schedule before removing the feature from scope.

FOCIL is Hegotá’s Consensus Layer headliner. It aims to improve Ethereum’s censorship resistance by allowing validators to create inclusion lists containing eligible transactions that block builders must respect. This reduces Ethereum’s dependence on a small group of builders for deciding which transactions make it onchain.

EtherWorld has been tracking FOCIL’s development for more than a year, including its role in strengthening transaction inclusion guarantees and its earlier consideration for Glamsterdam. The broader censorship-resistance argument was also explored in How Solo Stakers & FOCIL Strengthen Censorship Resistance on Ethereum and our analysis of why Hegotá could become an important upgrade for Ethereum’s censorship-resistance roadmap.

FOCIL is expected to ship alongside EIP-8369, which defines transaction eligibility rules so that inclusion guarantees can also work with newer transaction formats. On the Execution Layer, the S-tier proposal is Frame Transactions.

Frames restructures transaction validation, execution and gas payment in a way that enables native account abstraction. Rather than permanently tying Ethereum accounts to one signature model, transaction validation can become programmable.

15 More EIPs Expected to Ship

Below the two S-tier headliners are 15 A-tier proposals. A-tier means the Protocol Cluster considers a proposal a high priority and expects it to ship unless implementation reality forces developers to reduce scope.

On the Consensus Layer, EIP-8365 begins retiring BLS withdrawal credentials associated with cryptography that Ethereum ultimately wants to move away from as part of its post-quantum transition. EIP-8334 proposes bundled attestation propagation, reducing networking overhead by aggregating attestations earlier in the propagation process.

EIP-8025, Optional Execution Proofs, is another significant inclusion. It helps bring execution-proof-related changes into canonical Ethereum specifications, laying groundwork for Ethereum’s longer-term zkEVM direction.

On the Execution Layer, the A-tier includes EIP-3298, which removes gas refunds, and EIP-5920, which introduces a PAY opcode for transferring value without invoking recipient code.

The Protocol Cluster also supports a Frames extension package including EIP-7906, EIP-8298 and EIP-8151.

These proposals collectively strengthen the path toward accounts that are less dependent on Ethereum’s existing secp256k1 authentication model. Eight additional proposals sit in B-tier. These remain possible candidates, but each must clear additional requirements before being included.

One example is EIP-8198, Quick Slots. While shortening Ethereum’s slot time may appear like a relatively small parameter change, it could affect timing assumptions across clients, validators, networking infrastructure, MEV systems and applications.

The Protocol Cluster therefore wants a complete specification, prototype, ecosystem impact assessment and confirmation that Quick Slots will not complicate Ethereum’s future consensus architecture before it can move higher.

today EF Protocol published two posts. we hope you check them out!

for me, they mark the end of a transition that started back in april. when @kevaundray, @0xfredrik, and i stepped into the cluster coordinator roles, the job within the job was cluster-wide alignment: shaping a… https://t.co/0Pk7pKNbw3

— Will Corcoran (@corcoranwill) September 7, 2026

Ethereum Rejects 28 Hegotá Proposals

Out of 62 proposals, 28 received DFI, or Declined for Inclusion. Another seven remain below the immediate inclusion line in C-tier, while two proposals have been left as TBD pending real-world data after Glamsterdam reaches mainnet.

One of the most closely watched rejected proposals is EIP-8363, Tapered Issuance Burn. EIP-8363 proposed gradually reducing Ethereum’s net consensus-layer issuance as the staking ratio increases, potentially pushing protocol-issued staking rewards toward zero near its proposed saturation level.

EtherWorld previously examined the mechanics and wider economic debate in Ethereum’s Issuance Debate: Could Staking Rewards Fall to Zero?. The Protocol Cluster gave EIP-8363 a unanimous DFI grade, but importantly, this was not presented as a rejection of its economic merits.

Instead, the Foundation argued that issuance policy affects ETH holders, validators and Ethereum’s long-term security budget too broadly to be settled through one fork-scoping process led by one part of the ecosystem. The expectation is that issuance should instead move through a wider, multi-stakeholder discussion.

Hegotá Now Sits on Ethereum’s Post-Quantum Path

The tier list was published alongside another major Ethereum Foundation document outlining the Protocol Cluster’s priorities through 2029. The Protocol Cluster is currently planning around an intentionally aggressive assumption that a cryptographically relevant quantum computer could arrive as early as 2030.

This does not mean Hegotá itself will make Ethereum post-quantum. Instead, the Foundation describes Hegotá as the upgrade that determines whether the later post-quantum upgrades can arrive on schedule.

Ethereum’s broader roadmap has increasingly moved in this direction. EtherWorld recently covered how Ethereum’s roadmap is shifting toward quantum security, privacy, STARKs and formal verification.

Post-quantum work is also not new. The Ethereum Foundation previously backed projects such as ZKnox, which EtherWorld covered in Ethereum Foundation Backs ZKnox for Post-Quantum Security.

Concerns around quantum timelines have become more concrete as well. Our report on recent Shor algorithm research looked at why improvements in quantum algorithms are pushing blockchain researchers to treat migration planning as a current engineering problem rather than distant speculation.

The Foundation’s ranking should therefore be understood as a strong input into Hegotá scoping, not as the final upgrade specification. For developers, however, the emerging direction is increasingly difficult to miss.

With Glamsterdam already moving through increasingly realistic public testing, Hegotá is transitioning from an open proposal phase into a much more focused engineering programme. The Ethereum Foundation Protocol Cluster will also host a Reddit AMA on September 16 at 2 PM UTC, where developers and community members can challenge the rankings, including the decisions around B-tier, C-tier and declined proposals.

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• State of Upgrade: Hegotá Edition #1
• Ethereum Protocol Update: ACDE #244
• Ethereum Protocol Update: ACDE #243
• All You Need to Know About Ethereum Glamsterdam Upgrade
• Ethereum’s Issuance Debate: Could Staking Rewards Fall to Zero?

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