ChainCatcher message: Ethereum developer Toni Wahrstätter said on the X platform that Ethereum core developers are planning the next annual upgrade, “Hegotá.” So far, 66 Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) have entered the shortlist. In the coming core developer meetings, these proposals will be screened. The final selection will be the upgrade items that can be completed—carried through development testnets, deployed on testnets, and have the potential to go live in 2027. Proposals that do not make it into Hegotá will be postponed to the next hard fork. Therefore, the current screening process has a major impact on the future direction of Ethereum’s development.

At present, FOCIL (Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists) has been established as one of the key upgrade components for Hegotá. Developers believe that, when combined with framework transactions (EIP-8141), key-ized Nonces (EIP-8250), and root references (EIP-8272), it will help build native privacy capabilities, enabling privacy applications to run without relying on third-party intermediaries. In addition, improving scalability is also an important direction for Hegotá. Developers propose that, by re-pricing data resources (EIP-8131, EIP-8279) and the state growth cost (EIP-8368), the network will be ready for further increases to the gas limit up to 600 million. Although these improvements are not as intuitive as the privacy features, they are considered key work for pushing Ethereum’s scaling efforts in the short term.

Other candidate upgrades also include shorter block times (EIP-8198), changes to the issuance mechanism (EIP-8363), anti-correlation penalty mechanisms (EIP-7716), EVM optimizations and simplifications, as well as early discussions of EIPs related to zkEVM and post-quantum cryptography. It is said that Hegotá cannot include every feature the community expects. The core team will need to make trade-offs between the “future vision” and “near-term deliverable upgrades.” Most candidate EIPs may ultimately not make it into this upgrade. As of now, 256 days have passed since the launch of the current Glamsterdam upgrade. The goal is to complete the deployment by the end of this year. Hegotá is planned to go live in 2027. In the coming months, core developers and the community will discuss the priorities of various EIPs. Community feedback will continue to play a role in the screening process. Participants who support or oppose an EIP being included in Hegotá can express their views to the core development team through public discussions.