Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined a comprehensive roadmap to decentralize block production and mitigate Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) risks through a trio of protocol-level solutions: enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS), Fork‑Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL), and encrypted mempools. The proposals come ahead of Ethereum's planned Glamsterdam upgrade.
The core mechanism is ePBS (EIP‑7732), which separates transaction ordering from validator duties. Under this model, block proposers select bids from specialized builders who pre‑commit payloads, creating a permissionless market for block construction. This aims to standardize competition for MEV revenue and prevent builder dominance from spilling into staking centralization.
However, Flashbots analysis highlights a "free option" risk where a winning builder might fail to deliver the committed payload, leading to empty slots that degrade network liveness during volatile markets. Mitigations under discussion include shrinking the delivery window and introducing explicit penalties for missed payloads.
Buterin's "Big FOCIL" proposal expands on earlier inclusion list concepts to tackle builder centralization directly. In the standard FOCIL model, 16 randomly selected attesters choose transactions that must be included in a block; if excluded, the block is rejected. Big FOCIL would allow larger inclusion lists that could potentially cover all block transactions, selected based on sender address rules and pending status to limit duplication. This ensures censorship resistance, as even a hostile builder controlling all production cannot prevent transaction inclusion.
The third pillar involves encrypted mempools, which aim to curb toxic MEV practices like sandwiching and frontrunning by hiding transaction intent until block inclusion. Buterin noted, "If a transaction is encrypted until it's included, no one gets the opportunity to 'wrap' it in a hostile way." The main challenge is ensuring encrypted transactions remain valid and are decrypted at the correct time while maintaining compatibility with existing systems.
For the transaction ingress layer, Buterin examined network‑layer anonymization tools like Tor routing, Ethereum‑focused mixnets, and systems like Flashnet to protect transaction routing from observation and exploitation by RPC providers or public nodes.
In the longer term, Buterin discussed distributed block building, suggesting that many transactions do not require full global state. New transaction categories could support distributed processing and lower costs, while existing types would remain but may cost more.
Market context showed Ethereum (ETH) rallied about 5% to $2,038 on March 2, 2026, alongside discussion of these protocol updates, though this price information is provided for context only.
