The Ethereum Foundation has drawn its clearest line yet under the network’s future, naming two “must ship” proposals for the Hegotá upgrade and, in the process, publishing a unified ranking of the entire proposal pipeline for the first time.
In a blog post published Monday, the Foundation’s Protocol cluster ranked 62 Ethereum Improvement Proposals, drawing on input from roughly 60 researchers and engineers. The exercise marks the first time the Protocol cluster has published a consolidated view of proposed EIPs rather than a collection of separate opinions from individual teams — a procedural shift designed to make upgrade scoping more transparent and coherent.
## Two proposals now define the upgrade
The two must-ship designations went to EIP-7805, known as FOCIL, and EIP-8141, known as Frame Transactions, which the Foundation described as the consensus-layer and execution-layer headliners of Hegotá respectively.
FOCIL, short for a forced-inclusion mechanism, is designed to give users a path to have eligible transactions included in blocks without relying on centralized block builders. In practice, it is Ethereum’s most direct answer yet to the problem of transaction censorship, which has grown as a small set of powerful builders has come to dominate block production. Under current conditions, a builder that chooses to exclude certain transactions can effectively freeze a user out of the network. FOCIL changes that equation by building an inclusion guarantee into the protocol itself.
Frame Transactions, the execution-layer counterpart, would introduce native account abstraction to the base protocol and open a path toward post-quantum authentication. Together with two companion proposals, the change could also provide protocol-level building blocks for privacy applications — giving developers standardized primitives for smart-contract wallets and cryptographic flexibility that today requires workaround layers.
The Foundation was explicit about what the “must ship” label means: the two proposals effectively define the upgrade. If either is at risk of missing the fork, the Foundation said, Hegotá’s schedule should be adjusted before the proposal itself is dropped — a reversal of the usual dynamic in which timelines pressure features into being cut.
## How the other 60 proposals fared
Beyond the two headliners, the ranking placed 15 proposals in the A-tier, meaning they are expected to ship unless development or testing constraints force cuts. Another eight remain candidates for inclusion, seven were placed below the line but not ruled out, and 28 were declined outright. Two proposals remain unranked pending mainnet data from Glamsterdam, the upgrade that precedes Hegotá and is focused on improving scalability and strengthening the network’s base layer.
According to the Foundation, client teams could begin implementing Hegotá in late 2026, following Glamsterdam’s activation.
The sequencing matters for Ethereum’s roadmap. Glamsterdam is aimed at scalability and base-layer strengthening, while Hegotá is shaping up as the censorship-resistance and account-flexibility upgrade. FOCIL’s top billing in the consensus-layer rankings signals that neutral transaction inclusion has moved from a research topic to a core commitment — a significant step for a network that has faced repeated questions about builder centralization and regulatory pressure on transaction ordering.
## A short history of recent upgrades
Ethereum’s last major upgrade, Fusaka, went live on December 3, 2025, delivering a series of scaling and usability improvements. Its headline feature, PeerDAS, changed how nodes handle rollup data, reducing the amount each node needs to download and upload while increasing data capacity for the layer-2 networks that build on Ethereum.
Hegotá’s scope is still being finalized, and the Foundation’s unified ranking is best read as a strong signal of intent rather than a final manifest. Ethereum’s upgrade process has historically involved negotiation between the Foundation, client teams and the broader community, and A-tier proposals have been cut before when testing uncovered problems late in the cycle.
Still, the publication itself represents a governance milestone. By committing to a single ranked list — and by stating that the schedule bends before the must-ship proposals do — the Protocol cluster has given developers, researchers and users an unusually clear view of what Ethereum’s leadership considers non-negotiable.
For the ecosystem’s builders, the practical takeaways are concrete: smart-contract wallet teams can plan around native account abstraction primitives, privacy application developers get protocol-level building blocks to target, and anyone concerned about censorship resistance can point to a scheduled mechanism rather than a promise.
Ether (ETH) was trading near 2,494 USD at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko data, with Bitcoin (BTC) around 79,200 USD and Solana (SOL) near 104 USD.
15 A-tier proposals queued behind two must-ships means this fork gets heavy fast. curious what survives the devnet gauntlet if FOCIL or frame tx slip at all
FOCIL alone justifies the whole upgrade. after years of watching a handful of builders quietly filter txs, an inclusion guarantee at protocol level is overdue
^ and the part about bending the schedule before dropping the EIP is a genuine culture shift for the EF. usually features get cut to hit dates
bending the schedule instead of cutting the EIP is a reversal years in the making. used to be features died silently to hit a date nobody remembered anyway
Right, but bending the schedule cuts both ways. The fork date becomes a moving target and client teams plan testnets around dates. Devnets will tell the real story here.
FOCIL finally getting must-ship status is the headline here. forced inclusion is the real answer to builder censorship, everything before was band-aids
60 researchers ranking all 62 EIPs in one place is quietly the bigger deal imo. first time you can actually see what has momentum instead of guessing from discord chatter
must-ship status for forced inclusion is the protocol finally admitting inclusion lists are load bearing. years of relays pretending neutrality, now its code or bust
28 of 62 proposals declined outright. That might be the most decisive thing the Foundation has ever published.
28 declined of 62 is a brutal hit rate but honestly the healthiest signal in years. most of those were dead proposals kept on life support by one maintainer each
frame transactions is the sleeper here imo. everyone’s yelling about FOCIL but native account abstraction plus a post-quantum auth path quietly changes wallet UX forever
the post-quantum auth path is the underrated part of 8141 honestly. wallet migration pain lasts one upgrade, being locked into todays key schemes lasts forever
frame transactions as the execution headliner is a bold call. curious how wallet devs handle the migration once Hegotá lands
wallet migration is the real cost of frame transactions. every wallet and smart account lib on mainnet touches tx construction, that is a long tail of breaking changes
ranking 62 EIPs publicly forces every team to defend its pet proposal on the same board. that procedural change might outlast whatever actually ships in Hegotá
same board for all 62 means the next devcon arguments at least cite a ranking instead of vibes. small procedural win, big over time