Ethereum Ethlabs Roadmap Targets Faster, Safer Hegotá Upgrade
The Ethlabs roadmap proposal focuses on structural core protocol enhancements for the second biggest cryptocurrency Ethereum:
Ethereum Hegotá Upgrade: Ethlabs Pushes Faster Blocks and Safer Scaling
Ethlabs proposes EIP-7805 (FOCIL), the only officially slated feature of Hegotá that will allow restricting transaction visibility to specialty block builders.
Proposes EIP-8198 (Quick Slots) to decrease Ethereum’s base block time of ~12 seconds to ~10 seconds throughout Hegotá.
Advocates for EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions) to supersede ERC-4337, enabling account abstraction features like passkey login, sponsored fees, ERC-20 paying for gas, and quantum-safe signers at the protocol layer.
Supports EIP-8131 and EIP-8279 which limit worst-case payload sizes and introduce Block Access Lists, respectively. The former limits will help safely increase Ethereum’s mainnet gas limit.
Execution client teams will provide official ranked lists of Hegotá priorities by September 10, further narrowing the list of proposals.
Emphasis on Censorship Resistance and Faster Block Production
An Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) is a design document providing information to the Ethereum community, or describing a new feature for Ethereum or its processes or proposing changes to Ethereum. An EIP provides a transparent way for contributors all over the world to propose improvements, comment on proposals, and organize implementations, ranging from high-level application standards (for example, ERC-20) to changes to consensus critical to the network’s functioning that are deployed by hard forks.
Researchers implement these ideas as Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) to help enforce censorship resistance at the protocol layer. Claiming censorship resistance is Ethereum’s best insurance policy, Ethlabs authored EIP-7805 or FOCIL (Fork-Choice-Triggered Inclusion Lists), which allows decentralized committees of validators to mandate user transactions to be included in a block.
| Pillar | Proposed EIP | Functional Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Censorship Resistance | EIP-7805 (FOCIL) | Enforces validator inclusion lists |
| Block Confirmation Speed | EIP-8198 (Quick Slots) | Reduces 12s slot time toward ~10s |
| Account Abstraction | EIP-8141 (Frame) | Protocol-native smart accounts and passkeys |
| L1 Payload & Gas Limits | EIP-8131 & EIP-8279 | Constrains bandwidth to scale gas safely |
FOCIL utilizes crypto validator committees to create transaction inclusion lists. Validators that participate in attesting will only validate blocks that adhere to the inclusion list requirements, making it extremely difficult for MEV builders to censor valid user transactions.
Ethlabs also places EIP-8198 (Quick Slots) in their Tier 1 category. The EIP suggests gradually reducing Ethereum’s current 12-second block time. Specifications currently state 8 seconds, but Ethlabs states it’s used as a placeholder for development. Instead, they recommend a more realistic ~10 second timeframe during the Hegotá phase allowing for faster time-to-finality and responsiveness overall.
Frame Transactions: Native Smart Accounts with Built-In Protocol Knowledge
Ethlabs prefers frame transactions (EIP-8141) over existing external layer solutions like ERC-4337 or Pectra’s EIP-7702 to enable account abstraction. Frame Transactions splits verification of transactions from their execution within the EVM itself. This allows accounts to benefit from arbitrary verification logic without needing independent bundler networks. Frame Transactions, if implemented, would natively allow the following.
Passkey and Biometric Signers
Separating verification from the original secp256k1 signing validation checks as found in transactions allows EIP-8141 to let user accounts verify other elliptic curves like secp256r1 natively in the EVM. With user accounts able to verify within EVMs, users can sign transactions with the security hardware found on their devices (Touch ID, Face ID, fingerprint sensors) instead of having to rely on exposing, storing, and manually backing up 12-word seed phrases. This ultimately allows users to have consumer level biometric security brought to Layer 1 and creates a framework that allows for later upgrades to allow for post-quantum signature algorithms.
Sponsored and Multi-Token Gas
Enabling decentralized applications (dApps) or third parties to pay for transaction gas or accept ERC-20 tokens (such as USDC, ETH) as payment for execution fees changes the user experience entirely. Gas abstraction is realized in EIP-8141 by separating who performs execution versus who pays for it explicitly with separate verification frames. Paymaster contracts will be able to verify proofs of off-chain sponsored transactions or debit gas costs directly from a user’s stablecoin account in one atomic action. Users will no longer need to obtain and hold ETH just to pay for gas fees when using dApps.
Atomic Batching and Account Recovery
Batching instructions together avoids intermediate state pollution and allows social recovery at the protocol layer. Frame Transactions enable transactions that perform multiple steps of user-initiated dApp interactions (e.g., approve ERC-20, swap DEX, stake yield), bundling them into a single execution message that commits or discards. Additionally, since account permissions are managed by a trustless EVM validator logic, users can program instructions such as multi-signature thresholds, social recovery guardian sets, or timelocks.
Safe L1 Capacity Scaling and Next Steps
To expand Layer 1 execution capacity without compromising node decentralization, Ethlabs advocates combining EIP-8131 and EIP-8279.
EIP-8131 provides blocks and transactions with the same 64-gas baseline for byte consumption, limiting worst case payload expansion to approximately 0.89 MB assuming a 60 million gas limit. EIP-8279 ensures Block Access List bytes generated by executing the EVM are subject to similar accounting rules. Both proposals close bandwidth accounting loopholes that left nodes vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks if the mainnet gas limit was increased.
Ethlabs chose not to prioritize EIP-8363, which was a draft version of an Ethereum Improvement Proposal which changed monetary issuance of ETH by burning a percentage of validators’ rewards based on variable staking ratios. Ethlabs made a point to clarify that monetary policy issues should be decided by wider consensus than typical technical hard fork scope.
What is the Hegotá Upgrade?
Hegotá will be the next major coordinated hard fork on Ethereum after Glamsterdam. It’s called Hegotá because Heze is the name of the consensus-layer star from Ethereum Visions , and Bogotá hosted Devcon 4. The Ethereum Foundation tends to release major upgrades twice a year, usually focusing on small sets of tightly grouped technical improvements. Glamsterdam is centered around increasing Ethereum’s raw execution throughput, block-builder efficiency, and expanding gas limits initially. Hegotá on the other hand, is centered around improving Ethereum’s structural node health, censorship resistance at a protocol level, and long-term L1 scalability. It is expected to be released around late 2026 or early 2027 depending on testing on client devnets and the activation of Glamsterdam.
Future Plans for Hegotá
Client development teams will need to provide their official Hegota proposal rankings to the execution clients by September 10 so that core developers have a set of baseline technical information with which to complete the upgrade package.