The Ethereum Foundation has released two latest documents related to the Hegot upgrade. One document focuses on the internal ratings of 62 Ethereum improvement proposals, while the other lists the key tasks for the underlying protocol in the coming years, including making Layer resistant to quantum attacks by December 2029.
62 proposals have entered the rating phase.
The foundation stated that approximately 60 researchers, engineers, and protocol experts participated in this round of evaluation, coming from 9 Protocol Cluster teams, who submitted a total of 397 rating opinions. These ratings are intended to help developers compare the technical benefits, development costs, and potential conflicts of the proposals, but they do not imply that all proposals will proceed to the mainnet.
Hegot is scheduled for 2027 in Ethereum's public roadmap, which is later than the Glamsterdam upgrade that was planned to be implemented in the fourth quarter of 2026. The final changes to be incorporated will still depend on the progress of implementation, network testing by developers, public testing networks, and the coordination among various client teams.
FOCIL Focus on Incorporating Transactions
In the proposals that have been discussed, FOCIL focuses on the issue of transaction inclusion rights. According to this design, the verifier committee can publish a list of qualified transactions that should be included by the block builders. If the builders exclude these transactions without cause, witnesses can reject the relevant blocks, thereby mitigating the impact of excessive centralization of the block building infrastructure.
The execution layer client team is also required to submit their preferred proposals for Hegot by September 10th. Directions that were previously discussed include native account abstraction, shorter block generation intervals, state growth pricing, privacy tools, and adjustments to validator incentives, but these topics have not yet been confirmed to be included in the upgrade scope.
The goal of resisting quantum computing is set for December 2029.
Another document lists quantum resistance as a long-term task that spans across single hard forks. Ethereum currently does not possess quantum resistance, as its account system and validator system still rely on cryptographic schemes that may be weakened by quantum computing in the future. However, the foundation also points out that there is still a significant gap between the current hardware and the actual capability to carry out such attacks.
This transformation is not just about replacing a single algorithm. The research work has been divided into several parts, including user accounts, verifier signatures, the consensus layer, data availability, and zero-knowledge proof systems. Different modules face different performance requirements and migration methods.
Validator migration plan is still in the drafting stage.
In June this year, Ethereum researcher N Token Issuance proposed that users could first add post-quantum protection to their accounts through smart contract logic, with a cost of about $0.07 per account. This solution is based on the SPHINCS class of signatures, but it can only protect at the account level and cannot immediately endow the entire network with quantum-resistant capabilities.
A draft submitted on August 24th addresses another part of the issues during the migration of validators. According to the design, the new validator deposit contract will support public keys of variable lengths and assign identifiers to different signature systems. The first identifier will still correspond to the currently used BLS deposit, while subsequent identifiers will reserve space for post-quantum signature schemes.
Developers also mentioned an irreversible migration switch, which involves stopping the addition of new BLS deposits after the transition period ends. To enable this step, existing validators, staking service providers, and client teams all need to complete infrastructure updates first.
Additional information:The Ethereum Foundation has scheduled a Q&A event to be held on September 16th at the r/ ethereum community located at Reddit, to address issues such as the rating of proposals Hegot, controversial solutions, and protocol priorities.
