Ethereum's next major upgrade is being scoped now, with 66 proposals competing for a handful of slots in the 2027 release.
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Ethereum narrows 66 Hegotá upgrade proposals to a single EIP
Ethereum's next major upgrade is being scoped now, with 66 proposals competing for a handful of slots in the 2027 release.
Ethereum developers are weighing 66 proposals for the Hegotá upgrade, with FOCIL the only EIP confirmed for the 2027 network release as teams prioritize censorship resistance and native privacy.
"Sixty-six proposals are on the table and over the next few core dev calls, this list will be narrowed down to the EIPs that get implementations, devnets, testnets, and a realistic chance of shipping in 2027," Toni Wahrstätter, researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, said on X on Aug. 16.
FOCIL, or EIP-7805, lets a committee of validators publish transaction inclusion lists that block builders must honor, with attesters refusing blocks that omit eligible transactions. The design targets censorship resistance as large builders control more of block production. Wahrstätter argued Frame Transactions (EIP-8141), Keyed Nonces (EIP-8250) and Recent Roots (EIP-8272) should join FOCIL to "unlock native privacy," letting privacy apps run without relying on intermediaries.
The Hegotá proposed-for-inclusion list is set to be finalized by late August, with execution client teams submitting ranked preference lists by Sept. 10. Proposals that miss the cut could be reconsidered for a later upgrade, while Glamsterdam — targeting a 200 million gas limit — ships first in Q4 2026.
Frame Transactions face an August decision point
Native account abstraction remains unsettled. EIP-8141 would introduce Frame Transactions, allowing transaction validation, execution and gas payment to be defined through programmable frames, with goals including alternative signature schemes, key rotation and gas sponsorship. At the Aug. 13 All Core Developers Execution call, teams agreed to compare EIP-8141 with EIP-8130 at an Aug. 25 breakout, with a decision targeted for the Aug. 27 ACDE meeting.
Gas repricing targets larger blocks
Several candidates focus on making bigger blocks safer. EIP-8131 would impose a uniform transaction content floor of 64 gas per user-controlled byte, while EIP-8279 extends similar accounting to Block Access List data. EIP-8368 proposes recalibrating state-creation pricing as the block gas limit rises beyond Glamsterdam's reference level, preparing for a possible path toward 600 million gas.
Other ideas remain under debate, including eight-second slots under EIP-8198, anti-correlation validator penalties under EIP-7716, post-quantum cryptography and changes to ETH issuance. EIP-8198 remains a draft, while EIP-7716 is marked stagnant despite appearing on the Hegotá proposal list.
The scoping decisions will determine which protocol primitives Ethereum builders get first. If the privacy-oriented proposals make the cut, applications could interact with base-layer privacy features without third-party coordination — a shift that would change what kinds of confidential use cases are practical on Ethereum. ETH traded at $1,879.05, down 0.1 percent over 24 hours, as of the latest data.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
