Invest Reports disagree 2 publishers 3 min read Published Sep 7, 2026, 5:09 PM PDT

Ethereum's protocol cluster declined 28 of the 62 EIPs proposed for Hegota

Sixty-odd researchers produced 397 grades across 62 proposals, and the resulting ledger matters less for what it locks in than for the December 2029 quantum deadline now setting Ethereum's fork cadence.

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Illustration accompanying Ethereum's protocol cluster declined 28 of the 62 EIPs proposed for Hegota — Generated illustration

What happened

The Ethereum Foundation's Protocol cluster published one graded ranking of all 62 EIPs proposed for Hegota, the network upgrade slated to follow Glamsterdam.
The companion priorities post sets December 2029 for a quantum-resistant base layer across execution, consensus and data, matching migration targets set independently by Google, Cloudflare and Microsoft.
The cluster says client teams can realistically begin implementing Hegota in late Q4 2026, after Glamsterdam.

Why it matters

What it limits constraint With 35 of 62 proposals declined or below the line, the reviewer hours those would have consumed are now committed elsewhere, and an S grade means the calendar bends before the scope does rather than the reverse.
What doesn't add up contradiction Cryptopolitan reports FOCIL as the sole clean S while Cointelegraph counts two must-ship EIPs and neither names the second, so an execution-layer team cannot yet identify one of the features that supposedly governs its roadmap.
Who has to decide decision Anyone budgeting against post-quantum Ethereum should plan around the January 2027 outside review rather than the tier list, because that is where the December 2029 date is either confirmed or moved.
What it sets up precedent Holding the 2029 target makes a roughly seven-month fork rhythm the expected cadence rather than the exception, which is what rollup and staking operators have to absorb into release planning.

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The tally closes, which is the first thing to check in a document like this: two must-ship, 15 expected to ship, eight still candidates, seven below the line but not ruled out, 28 declined and two held back for mainnet data adds to exactly 62 ^[23]^[6]^[31]^[11]. So 28 declines is 45% of the candidate set told to go away for this fork ^[26], and adding the seven parked below the line puts 56% of what was proposed outside Hegota unless something moves ^[27].

The 397 grades sound like saturation until you divide them: twelve of the sixteen contribution templates carried actual tier grades ^[12], blanket coverage would therefore have produced 744, and 397 is 53% of that ^[28]. That is deliberate, since several contributors graded only the EIPs where they held deep expertise ^[12], which makes the average of 6.4 grades per EIP, and the nine on the most contested items ^[13], a map of where attention pooled rather than a measure of consensus breadth. Geth will still publish its own standalone execution-layer list ^[14].

The date doing the real work here is December 2029, when the cluster wants the base layer quantum-resistant across execution, consensus and data, a target it says matches migration plans set independently by Google, Cloudflare and Microsoft ^[15]. Fusaka went live on December 3, 2025 ^[22], Glamsterdam is planned for December 2026 ^[18], and the cluster says reaching 2029 from there requires an average of 7.2 months per fork through a fifth upgrade it calls L* ^[18]. Five forks at 7.2 months is 36 months, which lands exactly on the target ^[29], and it is a 40% compression on the roughly twelve months between Fusaka and Glamsterdam ^[24]. Client teams could realistically begin Hegota implementation in late Q4 2026 ^[7], which is to say while Glamsterdam is still shipping ^[25].

So the tier list, or rather the more interesting version of it, is a schedule with grades attached: an S means the calendar bends before the scope does ^[8], and the calendar is anchored to a Q-day the Foundation itself calls a deliberately aggressive assumption, conceding that the most credible estimates put cryptography-breaking machines later, if they arrive at all ^[16]. Spending 28 declines ^[6] against a date you have labelled aggressive is a reasonable trade when the cost of being late is unbounded and the outside review is already booked for January 2027 ^[17]. The counter-read has evidence in the same document: FOCIL, filed as EIP-7805 and the one clean S in Cryptopolitan's account, is a censorship-resistance feature about getting an eligible transaction included without leaning on centralized block builders ^[4]^[5], not a post-quantum one, and the B-tier gates of prototype, sign-off and settled specification ^[9] test readiness rather than sequencing. If inclusion is decided by those gates, 2029 is context rather than cause.

What a builder gets from this is a grade instead of a per-team thread ^[2], plus a scope signal on privacy, since the cluster says that work should start in Hegota to deliver native, trustless, censorship resistant private transactions on L1 ^[20]. What the coverage does not yield is the identity of the second locked-in item: Cryptopolitan reports FOCIL as the only clean S ^[4], Cointelegraph counts two must-ship EIPs ^[31]. One of the two has no name yet.

What to watch

The January 2027 reassessment with outside experts: any slip in the December 2029 date reopens the B and C bands.
Whether Glamsterdam actually lands in December 2026, since a slip pushes the remaining forks below a 7.2-month average.
Geth's standalone execution-layer list, and whether it diverges from the cluster ranking on any A-tier item.

Information, not investment advice. This story is general information about companies and markets, drawn from cited reporting. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security; check the cited sources before acting.

Clarity's read

What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.

Reality

Evidence57
Adoption22
Hype gap+24
Incentives68
Confidence63

Why these scores

Claim ledger

Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.

[1]
The Ethereum Foundation's Protocol cluster published a single graded ranking of every one of the 62 EIPs proposed for Hegota, the network upgrade slated to follow Glamsterdam.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[2]
It is the first time the Protocol cluster has spoken with one voice on a fork instead of leaving each team to post its own opinions, and the list is now the reference point for which features are locked in and which are on the chopping block.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[3]
The tier list was posted alongside a companion piece on cluster priorities on Monday, September 7.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[4]
Only FOCIL, filed as EIP-7805, earned a clean S grade, a unanimous top grade at full participation, described as the locked-in consensus-layer headliner.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[5]
FOCIL enables any user to get an eligible transaction included without leaning on centralized block builders.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[6]
Beyond the two headliners, the Foundation placed 15 proposals in its A-tier, eight remain candidates for inclusion, seven were placed below the line but not ruled out, and 28 were declined.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[7]
The protocol cluster says Hegota implementation by client teams can realistically start in late Q4 2026.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[8]
An S grade means a feature defines the fork and the schedule bends before its scope does; an A is expected to ship and can only be cut after every S item is safe.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[9]
B-tier proposals are admitted one at a time, most of them requiring a prototype, a sign-off and a settled specification; C-tier lands below the line without being disqualified; DFI means declined for inclusion.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[10]
A DFI reason could be security risk or a threat to a later milestone, and a separate TBD band holds proposals back until mainnet data can answer questions the cluster cannot answer today.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[11]
Two proposals remain unranked pending mainnet data from Glamsterdam, the upgrade preceding Hegota, which is focused on improving scalability and strengthening the network's base layer.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[12]
Roughly 60 researchers and engineers were involved in the scoring, organised in nine teams plus individual domain experts, and they filled out 16 contribution templates; twelve of those provided actual tier grades, several only on the EIPs where they held deep expertise.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[13]
The protocol cluster teams produced 397 grades across the 62 proposals, an average of 6.4 per EIP, with the most contested items getting as high as nine grades apiece; the scoring was carried out independently.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[14]
The Protocol Cluster said Geth, as an execution-layer client, will still ship its own standalone list.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[15]
The cluster's priorities post sets a goal of making Ethereum's base layer quantum-resistant across execution, consensus and data by December 2029, a date that matches migration targets set independently by Google, Cloudflare and Microsoft.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[16]
The Ethereum Foundation calls planning for a 2030 Q-day a deliberately aggressive assumption, noting that the most credible estimates put the arrival of cryptography-breaking quantum computers later, and that is if it happens at all.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[17]
The Foundation says it will treat the self-imposed December 2029 deadline as non-negotiable at least until a January 2027 reassessment with outside experts.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[18]
To reach the December 2029 target after a December 2026 Glamsterdam launch, the Foundation says it will need to move at an average pace of 7.2 months per fork through a fifth upgrade called L*.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[19]
The cluster's work is organised around five overlapping research arcs: fast finality, post-quantum, privacy, state and zkEVM.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[20]
The Protocol Cluster wrote: "We believe this work should start in Hegota to deliver native, trustless, censorship resistant private transactions on Ethereum L1."
Reported Supported Source: Ethereum Foundation Protocol Cluster blog postView cited source
[21]
The cluster describes Hegota as the fork that determines how soon the post-quantum fork happens, with post-quantum privacy coming at scale afterwards.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[22]
Ethereum's Fusaka upgrade went live on December 3, 2025, with headline feature PeerDAS changing how nodes handle rollup data, reducing the amount each node downloads and uploads while increasing data capacity for layer-2 networks.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[23]
The published band counts sum to the full candidate set: 2 must-ship plus 15 A-tier plus 8 candidates plus 7 below the line plus 28 declined plus 2 unranked equals 62.
Derived Supported
[24]
The gap from Fusaka's December 3, 2025 launch to a December 2026 Glamsterdam is about twelve months, so the required 7.2-month average per fork is a compression of about 40%.
Derived Supported
[25]
A late Q4 2026 start on Hegota implementation coincides with the December 2026 Glamsterdam launch window.
Derived Supported
[26]
The 28 declined proposals are 45% of the 62-EIP candidate set.
Derived Supported
[27]
The 28 declined plus the 7 placed below the line are 35 of 62 proposals, or 56% of the candidate set.
Derived Supported
[28]
If each of the twelve grade-carrying contribution templates had covered all 62 EIPs, the exercise would have produced 744 grades; the 397 actually recorded are 53% of that.
Derived Supported
[29]
Five forks at an average of 7.2 months is 36 months, which from a December 2026 Glamsterdam lands on December 2029.
Derived Supported
[30]
The two must-ship and 15 A-tier proposals together are 17 of 62, or 27% of the candidate set.
Derived Supported
[31]
Cointelegraph reports that the Ethereum Foundation named two must-ship EIPs for the Hegota upgrade, with FOCIL topping the consensus-layer rankings.
Reported ContestedView cited source

Sources

2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.

cointelegraph.com
1 article · September 7, 2026
Ethereum Foundation names 2 ‘must ship’ EIPs for Hegotá upgrade
cryptopolitan.com
1 article · September 7, 2026
Ethereum Foundation outlines Hegotá priorities with grades for all 62 EIP proposals

Clarity analysis

How the coverage leans and what the record actually supports. Read the methodology

Perspective Coverage

How much of the coverage speaks to builders, operators and investors. It measures emphasis, not whether the story is right.

Builder

For anyone writing Ethereum client or L2 code, the useful part of our coverage is the grammar of the bands, and only Cryptopolitan prints it: an S grade bends the schedule rather than the scope, an A can be cut only once every S item is safe, and most B-tier admissions arrive with a prototype, a sign-off and a settled specification attached. That turns a ranking into a queue with entry conditions. Two details deserve attention beyond the headline: the Protocol Cluster says privacy work should begin in Hegotá to deliver native private transactions on L1, and Geth will still publish its own list, so the unified voice stops short of binding the execution-layer clients. Implementation cannot begin before late Q4 2026, which is also when Glamsterdam is meant to ship.

Operator

The schedule is the operational story. The Foundation wants the base layer quantum-resistant across execution, consensus and data by December 2029, which means averaging 7.2 months per fork through a fifth upgrade called L* after a December 2026 Glamsterdam. Fusaka shipped in December 2025 and Glamsterdam is a year out, so that cadence asks for roughly 40% less time between upgrades than the interval just run, and the Foundation says the date stays non-negotiable until a January 2027 review with outside experts. For whoever runs nodes or maintains rollup infrastructure, that is five migration events in three years, and FOCIL — the one clean S — changes the path by which a transaction reaches a block. Neither Cryptopolitan nor Cointelegraph asked a client team or an operator what that pace costs.

Investor

Cointelegraph frames this as two must-ship features; the more informative number is the discard rate. Of 62 proposals, 28 were declined and seven parked below the line, so 56% of what was submitted will not be in Hegotá, and only 17 proposals — 27% — carry a real expectation of shipping. Fusaka's PeerDAS, already live since December 2025, is the concrete L2 capacity gain in this reporting; everything in Hegotá is a graded intention with implementation still a year out. The tell worth tracking is the January 2027 reassessment, because it is the moment the Foundation has scheduled for admitting that December 2029 has slipped.