Ethereum Foundation Releases Collective Rating for 62 EIPs for Hegotá Upgrade
The Ethereum Foundation announced that its core research coordination team, Protocol Cluster, has released two new articles assessing the upcoming network upgrade "Hegotá." The "Hegotá EIP Opinion Post and Tier List" evaluates and ranks the 62 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) currently proposed, marking the first time the team has published a unified EIP rating list for a single network upgrade.
About 60 researchers, engineers, and domain experts from nine teams under Protocol Cluster participated in the review, submitting a total of 397 rating opinions and engaging in live discussions on controversial proposals.
The rating list categorizes proposals into six tiers: S (must go live), A (expected to go live), B (needs further validation), C (lower priority), TBD (waiting for mainnet data), and DFI (not included). Ultimately, 2 proposals received an S rating, 15 received an A rating, while 28 proposals were rated as not included, with the remaining proposals distributed among B, C, or TBD categories. Historically, major Ethereum upgrades typically include only 5 to 15 EIPs, indicating that most of the current 62 candidate proposals will likely be postponed or abandoned.
Among the proposals rated S, EIP-7805 (FOCIL, Forced Inclusion List) aims to enhance censorship resistance by reducing reliance on centralized block builders; EIP-8141 ("Frame Transactions"), co-authored by Vitalik Buterin and 9 other contributors, also received an S rating. This proposal separates transaction authorization, fee payment, and execution, allowing users to pay gas fees with ERC-20 stablecoins like USDC without holding ETH, while a "sponsoring wallet" pays the ETH protocol fees and collects stablecoins from users as transaction output, supporting atomic batch transactions and key rotation. A-rated proposals include EIP-8369 (defining validator requirements for FOCIL qualification) and EIP-8365 (focusing on eliminating vulnerable cryptographic tokens).
The accompanying articles outline the current and future key directions for the Ethereum protocol layer, with a core long-term goal of achieving quantum resistance for Ethereum Layer 1 (L1) by December 2029. The specific path includes migrating from elliptic curve cryptography to hash-based signature schemes (such as XMSS, SPHINCS+) and STARKs proof systems. Quantum computing researchers have indicated that traditional cryptographic systems, like those used by Bitcoin, could be cracked by quantum computers within 4 to 5 years, adding urgency to this migration plan.
According to current plans, the upgrade codenamed "Glamsterdam" is expected to be implemented in Q4 2026, followed by the "Hegotá" upgrade anticipated in 2027, with specific dates yet to be determined. Client teams must submit their proposal priority rankings by September 10. Protocol Cluster will hold an AMA on Reddit's r/ethereum community on September 16 at 14:00 (UTC) to discuss the Hegotá EIP ratings and key protocol developments with the community. As of September 7, the spot price of Ethereum (ETH) is approximately $2473.34.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The unified release of the EIP rating list by Protocol Cluster marks a process upgrade in the Ethereum Foundation's coordination mechanism—previously, the proposal screening for Ethereum's hard forks (such as the London, Shanghai, and Cancun upgrades) relied more on informal discussions and item-by-item voting during core developer conference calls. This time, about 60 people from 9 teams participated in centralized scoring and a "steelman" disagreement recording mechanism, similar to the common stakeholder multi-round scoring and dissent recording decision-making model in corporate management, reflecting that Ethereum protocol development is evolving from early community spontaneous coordination to a more structured decision-making process akin to traditional large engineering organizations.
Historically, Ethereum upgrades could only accommodate 5 to 15 EIPs, but this time there are as many as 62 candidate proposals. The ratings essentially allocate the extremely scarce "upgrade resource slots"—proposals rated S and A (such as FOCIL and Frame Transactions) will receive priority for core developer engineering input and testnet resources, while the 28 proposals rated as "not included" imply that the research and communication costs invested by the relevant proposers are unlikely to translate into actual deployment in the short term. This resource allocation mechanism objectively determines which developer-led technical routes can enter the Ethereum mainnet, thus affecting their future ecological position.
This is similar to Bitcoin's governance path, where upgrades like SegWit and Taproot were pushed through after years of discussion via the BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) process. However, Ethereum's batch scoring mechanism is more efficient and transparent; the current Ethereum protocol development is at a turning point, gradually shifting from "throughput and fee optimization" to balancing "long-term security and quantum resilience." The design of Frame Transactions for stablecoin gas fee payments is also a direct follow-up to the user experience already supported by competing chains like Solana and Tron, which allow fee payments without holding native tokens.
Essentially, this represents a self-upgrade of "technical substitution" and "regulatory preemption"—mechanistically, Ethereum chooses to proactively use multiple hard forks in phases for cryptographic system migration within the 4 to 5 year window before quantum computers can effectively crack them, transforming what was originally a "post-remedy" security upgrade into a "pre-locking roadmap" certainty project. This approach of breaking down long-term tail risks (quantum cracking) into multiple executable hard fork nodes essentially uses the certainty of engineering scheduling to hedge against a currently unpredictable but potentially catastrophic technical risk.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Upgrade slots are scarce compared to the number of proposals, and ratings are essentially a resource allocation right.
The best way to respond to catastrophic risks is to break them down into executable small tasks in advance.
Whoever first matches the user experience of competitors will be the first to preserve their moat.