Ethereum’s upgrade planning has entered a critical two-week scoping window, with independent research nonprofit Ethlabs publishing its recommended priorities for the network’s planned Hegotá hard fork and developers acknowledging that the preceding Glamsterdam upgrade has slipped to the fourth quarter of 2026.
Ethlabs’ four Hegotá priorities are censorship resistance, faster blocks, native account abstraction, and continued Layer 1 scaling. The group ranks Quick Slots (EIP-8198) in its top tier, proposing Ethereum begin reducing its 12-second slot time during Hegotá, possibly landing around 10 seconds within about a year. It argues shorter slots would speed transaction settlement, bridges, and interoperability across the ecosystem.
Ethlabs also strongly supports FOCIL (EIP-7805), the only feature currently scheduled for inclusion in Hegotá. FOCIL uses validator-created inclusion lists to make it harder for specialized block builders to omit valid transactions. For account abstraction, Ethlabs backs Frame Transactions (EIP-8141), now listed as considered for inclusion, which would allow transaction validation and gas payment through EVM code, enabling passkeys, sponsored fees, token-denominated gas payments, batching, and post-quantum upgrades.
For L1 scaling, Ethlabs placed EIP-8131 and EIP-8279 in its top tier. These proposals would reprice transaction and block data to close bandwidth-accounting gaps and support higher gas limits. Ethlabs cautioned against expanding Hegotá too broadly, recommending rejection of EIP-8375 and EIP-8182, while declining to rank monetary-policy changes such as EIP-8363.
Separately, Ethereum developers are now targeting late 2026 for Glamsterdam, a shift from earlier first-half 2026 expectations, and have opened Platåberget as a stable public testnet. Glamsterdam will introduce breaking changes for tools using hardcoded maximum gas limits. For Hegotá’s 2027 release, developers are assessing 66 proposals, with the proposed-for-inclusion list expected around Aug. 27, and execution client teams due to submit rankings by Sept. 10.
