Following months of internal alignment and integration across the Ethereum Foundation and the broader ecosystem, the Ethereum Protocol cluster has officially published its comprehensive strategic priorities. With the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade approaching its mainnet deployment, the core development cluster has transitioned fully into the scoping season for the subsequent hard fork, provisionally titled Hegotá.
The newly outlined strategy defines the core purpose of the Protocol cluster, establishes binding commitments through December 2029, and details how these requirements will shape the upcoming pipeline of network upgrades. Alongside this overarching vision, the cluster has released a companion evaluation detailing its official tier list and opinions on every Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) considered for Hegotá.
The North Star
The primary guiding objective for the Ethereum Foundation Protocol cluster is to achieve full quantum resistance across all three fundamental layers of the Ethereum Layer 1—execution, consensus, and data—by December 2029. This self-imposed deadline closely mirrors independent quantum-safe migration timelines established by major technology institutions, including Google, Cloudflare, and Microsoft.
While precise estimates for the arrival of "Q-day"—the hypothetical moment when quantum computers become powerful enough to break modern cryptographic systems—remain outside human control, development leadership argues that fixing a concrete target is far more responsible than waiting for absolute certainty. Ethereum Layer 1 is consequently planning for potential quantum threats as early as 2030. Although most credible projections place the actual advent of practical quantum computing further into the future, and while the threat may never materialize, shipping post-quantum readiness early serves as a definitive statement of the network’s long-term viability across decades and centuries.
Historically, Ethereum has leaned toward a healthy distrust of all-in bets. However, because Q-day cannot be scheduled on demand, the Protocol cluster has deliberately chosen to treat this 2029 deadline as non-negotiable. This posture will remain firm at least until January 2027, at which point global cryptographic progress will be reassessed with input from external security experts.
The Plan
Reaching comprehensive post-quantum security by December 2029 requires an exceptionally disciplined execution cadence. Client development teams are expected to begin implementing Hegotá features in the late fourth quarter of 2026. Under the trajectory outlined in the July Strawmap, achieving full post-quantum readiness requires deployment at "L", marking the fifth hard fork following Glamsterdam. Shipping Glamsterdam in December 2026 and reaching L by December 2029 demands an average cadence of just 7.2 months per hard fork, leaving virtually no margin for error if development timelines slip.
To account for potential delays, a subsequent Strawmap update introduced a minimum viable post-quantum (MV-PQ) milestone known as J. This contingency framework incorporates the post-quantum public-key registry at I, followed by a post-quantum heartbeat on the consensus layer, lean data availability (leanDA) sampling on the data layer, and lean SPHINCS transactions on the execution layer at J*. Achieving this milestone via a 12-month cadence from Glamsterdam would still secure the network by the December 2029 target date.
While MV-PQ is designed as a temporary safeguard to keep Ethereum operational through Q-day with reduced cryptographic guarantees, full resistance across all layers remains the ultimate goal. The timeline also maintains flexibility for fork ordering past J*, with potential adjustments allowing lean consensus to advance while mandatory execution proofs shift. Meeting these demands will require unprecedented cross-ecosystem collaboration, bridging the gap between research, client implementation, and academic security review.
The Five Multi-Fork Research Arcs
To balance immediate network upgrades with long-horizon engineering challenges, the Protocol cluster organizes its ongoing work around five distinct multi-fork research arcs: fast finality, post-quantum cryptography, privacy, state management, and the zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM).
The fast finality arc aims to compress Ethereum’s transaction finality window from minutes down to seconds by decoupling finality from block production, introducing a dedicated finality gadget. This design leads the candidate list for the I* upgrade.
The post-quantum arc spans all three network layers to fulfill the 2029 commitment. While the execution layer leverages cryptographic agility through native account abstraction—allowing signature schemes to be swapped without requiring individual hard forks—the consensus layer demands rigorous pre-rollout hardening, requiring consensus components to wait for a complete, unified post-quantum architecture.
The privacy arc focuses on embedding privacy directly into protocol guarantees, allowing users to interact with applications without exposing their financial history or relying on trusted third parties. Initial steps toward native, trustless, and censorship-resistant private transactions are slated to begin with Hegotá, paving the way for encrypted mempools and post-quantum privacy at scale.
The state arc addresses state growth and access to ensure that ballooning data requirements do not become a structural bottleneck for the network. Key milestones include migrating to a modernized trie and enabling decentralized access to historical state, with major implementation expected to ramp up around the I* upgrade.
Finally, the zkEVM arc progressively transitions execution proofs from optional features to mandatory requirements, eventually allowing validators to verify succinct zero-knowledge proofs rather than re-executing entire blocks. This push simultaneously drives formal verification tooling and cryptographic components that benefit the entire ecosystem.
How Priorities Are Set and Shipped
The governing philosophy of the Protocol cluster remains focused on concentrating resources strictly on what only Protocol can achieve to uphold Ethereum’s core mandate. With Glamsterdam nearing completion and the 2029 quantum-readiness deadline crystallizing, long-term research items have transitioned into active near-term deployment priorities.
The cluster utilizes a structured maturity pipeline to vet potential improvements. Ideas progress systematically from initial research and EIP drafting through prototyping, devnets, and progressively higher levels of core developer consensus signals before reaching mainnet integration. Each stage is designed to introduce empirical evidence, reduce technical uncertainty, and clarify engineering ownership.
The Next Fork as the First Test
Hegotá represents the immediate proving ground for these strategic priorities. Rather than functioning as a standalone post-quantum upgrade, Hegotá is the critical milestone that determines whether subsequent quantum-resistant forks can be delivered on schedule.
The primary consensus-layer centerpiece for Hegotá is EIP-7805, introducing Fork-choice enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL) to improve censorship resistance by allowing multiple validators to mandate transaction inclusion. On the execution layer, EIP-8141 introduces the Frame Transaction model, fundamentally modernizing transaction validation and gas payment.
To preserve Ethereum’s core properties—encompassing censorship resistance, open-source freedom, privacy, and security—Hegotá pairs these foundational changes with targeted enhancements. These include keyed nonces and recent roots to support private transactions, withdrawal credential retirements to phase out vulnerable cryptography, and protective transaction assertions designed to secure user accounts against automated threats.
Delivering FOCIL and Frame transactions safely while rigorously testing their interactions forms the core engineering challenge of the Hegotá cycle.
What to Expect
Detailed assessments, tier lists, and individual rationales for every EIP considered during the Hegotá scoping process are available in the companion publication released by the EF Protocol team. Additionally, the development cluster will host a public community Q&A session on Reddit to discuss these priorities and answer ecosystem questions directly.
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