Layla Zulfa
The Ethereum Foundation’s (EF) Protocol cluster has released its inaugural consolidated tier list for 62 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) vying for inclusion in the forthcoming Hegotá network upgrade. This landmark publication marks a significant shift in the upgrade planning process, offering a single, unified perspective from the EF Protocol’s research and engineering teams, a departure from previous per-team opinions. The comprehensive evaluation, which saw 60 individuals across nine teams contribute, identifies two "must-ship" headliner EIPs and provides clear guidance on the path forward for dozens of others, emphasizing a strategic approach to Ethereum’s evolution.
Charting the Course: A New Era of Unified Protocol Development
For years, the development of Ethereum’s core protocol has been a decentralized and often multi-faceted endeavor, with various client teams and research groups operating with a degree of autonomy in their assessments of EIPs. While Geth, a prominent Execution Layer (EL) client, will continue to publish its standalone tier list, this new unified view from the EF Protocol cluster represents a concerted effort to streamline decision-making and enhance transparency across the broader protocol development landscape. The collaborative process involved over 60 people from both research and engineering disciplines, integrating feedback from numerous teams and individual contributors. This consolidated approach is a direct outcome of lessons learned from previous network upgrades, such as "Glamsterdam," where the complexity of integrating diverse EIPs highlighted the need for more coordinated planning.
The tier list is meticulously aligned with the EF Protocol’s overarching strategic vision, as detailed in its companion post, "EF Protocol: Current and Emerging Priorities." These priorities serve as the foundational criteria against which each EIP was judged, ensuring that the selected proposals collectively advance Ethereum’s long-term goals of scalability, security, decentralization, and enhanced developer experience.
The Rigorous Evaluation Process: From Templates to Tiers
The methodology employed for compiling the Hegotá tier list was designed for comprehensive and objective assessment. Sixteen contribution templates were submitted by nine teams and several individual domain experts, culminating in 397 individual tier grades across the 62 EIPs. This averaged out to 6.4 grades per EIP, with highly debated proposals receiving as many as nine independent evaluations.
The grading system utilized a five-tier scale: S (4 points), A (3 points), B (2 points), C (1 point), and D/DFI (0 points, representing ‘Declined For Inclusion’). An abstention from grading an EIP did not count against it, ensuring that only informed opinions influenced the averages. The "published tier" for each EIP was not simply a mathematical average but a "steelman" outcome, refined through vigorous debate during a 90-minute working session and several group calls. This process allowed for movements in both directions, reflecting a consensus-driven approach to final categorization.
Key lessons from the Glamsterdam upgrade retrospectives heavily influenced this evaluation. These included the importance of sizing EIPs by their integration depth, understanding how complexity compounds, recognizing testing surface as a scarce resource, and accounting for the tendency of EIP champions to underestimate complexity. For every EIP expected to ship, the accompanying note clearly articulates its merits. For those on the "bubble" (B or C tier), specific requirements for advancement are outlined. For declined EIPs, the notes provide explicit concerns, ensuring clarity and accountability.
Hegotá’s Headliners: Spearheading Critical Advancements
Two EIPs have been unequivocally designated as "S-tier" or "must-ship" proposals, signifying their critical importance to the Hegotá upgrade and Ethereum’s future trajectory.
On the Consensus Layer (CL), EIP-7805: FOCIL (Forced Transaction Inclusion List) stands out as the headliner. Graded a unanimous ‘S’ by all seven participants, FOCIL aims to provide any user with a reliable path to include an eligible transaction without sole reliance on centralized block builders. This is a crucial step towards mitigating centralization risks in transaction ordering and enhancing the censorship resistance of the network. FOCIL is designed to ship in conjunction with EIP-8369.
For the Execution Layer (EL), EIP-8141: Frame Transactions takes the ‘S-tier’ spotlight, receiving an overwhelming 3.89 average from nine participants. Frame Transactions represents a pivotal leap towards native account abstraction, offering a secure and flexible pathway to integrate Post-Quantum (PQ) signature schemes without requiring a new hard fork for each scheme. It also enables aggregation of transactions for more efficient PQ verification pricing and provides a route to phasing out vulnerable k1 keys. This EIP is slated to ship alongside EIP-8250 and EIP-8272, forming a cohesive package for enhanced account functionality.
Consensus Layer Highlights: Efficiency, Security, and Cleanup
Beyond the headliner, the CL tier list reveals a strategic focus on efficiency, security enhancements, and essential protocol cleanup.
Several EIPs achieved A-tier status, indicating an expectation to ship. EIP-8015: Remove Deposit and eth1data Fields (Avg: 3.14/7) is a near-unanimous proposal to remove dead fields, simplifying the protocol. EIP-8365: BLS Withdrawal Credential Retirement (Avg: 3/8) initiates the retirement of withdrawal credentials linked to vulnerable cryptography, a proactive security measure and the sole PQ-related item deemed ready for Hegotá. EIP-8383: Reduce CL Block Retention Window (Avg: 3/2) is a constant change addressing an incorrect safety-decay constant. EIP-8334: Bundled Attestation Propagation (Avg: 2.43/7) aims to reduce network gossip load by bundling attestations, with its mechanics already settled in specification. EIP-8025: Optional Execution Proofs (Avg: 2.38/8) integrates stateless execution changes into canonical specs, crucial for advancing zero-knowledge Virtual Machine (zkVM) development.
The B-tier includes proposals that show promise but require further refinement or specific conditions to be met for inclusion. EIP-8146: Block Access List Sidecars (Avg: 2.13/8) could reach A-tier once the observation deadline for Block Access Lists (BALs) is settled in specification. EIP-8237: Independent CL/EL Sync (Avg: 2/6) offers bandwidth savings post-ePBS, but a simpler non-EIP alternative is being explored. EIP-8198: Quick Slots (Avg: 2/6), despite some R&D support, received D-grades from engineering teams due to potential "retuning cascades." Its promotion to A-tier is contingent on four stringent requirements: full specifications, a complete prototype, an in-depth ecosystem impact assessment, and confirmation it doesn’t complicate decoupled consensus. EIP-8321: Hash-Chain RANDAO (Avg: 1.57/7) is considered a sound direction but is currently mis-sequenced, awaiting a complete PQ consensus design.
Proposals in the C and DFI (Declined For Inclusion) tiers were either deemed lower priority, premature, or faced significant concerns. EIP-8371: RowDAS: Distributed Blob Reconstruction (Avg: 2.11/9) was a matter of priority versus immediate operator pain. Notable DFI proposals include EIP-7716: Anti-Correlation Attestation Penalties (Avg: 0.83/6), which requires more research into its impact on staker landscape and centralization. EIP-8142: Block-in-Blobs (BiB) (Avg: 0/7) was unanimously declined as it "deepens dependence on KZG structures against the path to J*," indicating a clear strategic direction away from this approach. Similarly, EIPs like EIP-8148 and EIP-8205 (both Avg: 0/6) were declined as operational conveniences failing the "necessity bar."
Execution Layer Innovations: Account Abstraction and Core Refinements
The EL proposals mirror the CL’s blend of foundational improvements and strategic advancements, with a strong emphasis on enhancing the user and developer experience through account abstraction.
Among the A-tier EL EIPs, EIP-3298: Removal of Refunds (Avg: 3.17/6) is a critical cleanup, eliminating an entire class of metering edge cases. EIP-8250: Keyed Nonces for Frame Transactions (Avg: 3.12/8) and EIP-8272: Recent Roots for Frame Transactions (Avg: 2.86/7) are core components of the Frames package, enabling shared sender anonymity and verifiable private transactions, respectively. EIP-5920: PAY Opcode (Avg: 3/6) introduces a small but impactful feature for value transfer without invoking recipient code. Security-focused repricing EIPs like EIP-8279: Block Access List Byte Floor (Avg: 2.71/7) and EIP-8131: Unified Transaction Content Floor (Avg: 2.67/6) aim to bound worst-case block construction costs. EIP-7906: Transaction Assertions via State Diff Opcode (Avg: 2.43/7) enhances transaction security, preventing wallet drains and MEV extraction. The combined package of EIP-8298: SETCODEFROM Code Reuse Instruction (Avg: 2.17/6) and EIP-8151: Account Code Restricted ecRecover (Avg: 2/6) is vital for the k1 key retirement process, allowing delegated accounts to become true smart contracts. Notably, EIP-4758: Deactivate SELFDESTRUCT (Avg: 1.5/6) was promoted to A-tier despite its average score, due to a strong override from engineering teams who cited its long-term cost and testing hazards for future EIPs.
The B-tier EL proposals include EIP-8253: Bump Nonce of Zero-Nonce Storage Accounts (Avg: 2.29/7), which significantly simplifies trie migration steps, and EIP-8077: eth/XX: Announce Transactions with Nonce (Avg: 2/5), which awaits a settled wire format for the Frames-era mempool. Repricing EIPs like EIP-8374: Persist Warm Access Sets Across Reverts (Avg: 1.67/6) and EIP-7709: Read BLOCKHASH from Storage and Update Cost (Avg: 1.67/6) require further devnet sequencing or are coupled with other proposals.
The C and DFI tiers for EL proposals reflect similar rationales to the CL. EIP-8200: EVMification (Avg: 1.43/7) and EIP-7666: EVM-ify the Identity Precompile (Avg: 1/7) are contingent on extensive bytecode audits. EIP-8355: ML-DSA Verification Precompiles (Avg: 1/9) was declined as "premature standardization" of a specific PQ verification scheme. Significantly, EIP-7645: Alias ORIGIN to SENDER (Avg: 0/6) was unanimously rejected for "breaking assumptions in deployed contracts for no security gain." Other repricing EIPs, like EIP-7923 and EIP-7973, were deferred to avoid further metering churn before Glamsterdam’s repricing evidence. Two repricing proposals, EIP-8368 and EIP-8372, remain TBD, awaiting crucial mainnet data from the Glamsterdam upgrade to inform decisions on recalibration or normalization of gas limits.
Broader Implications: Shaping Ethereum’s Strategic Roadmap
This unified tier list for Hegotá is more than just a collection of EIPs; it is a strategic blueprint that delineates the immediate priorities and long-term vision for Ethereum’s protocol development. By clearly categorizing proposals and providing explicit rationales for inclusion, deferral, or decline, the EF Protocol cluster is setting a precedent for a more focused and efficient hard fork planning process.
The emphasis on FOCIL and Frame Transactions underscores a dual commitment to enhancing transaction censorship resistance and accelerating native account abstraction. These foundational changes are critical for improving user experience, supporting new cryptographic primitives (like Post-Quantum security), and fostering a more resilient and inclusive network. The strategic deferral of certain proposals, especially those related to state repricing or more complex consensus changes, highlights a cautious approach, ensuring that each upgrade builds on a stable foundation and that resources are optimally allocated. The lessons from Glamsterdam, particularly regarding complexity and testing, indicate a mature understanding of the challenges inherent in protocol development.
The tier list implicitly shapes resource allocation for client teams and researchers, directing their efforts towards the high-priority S and A-tier EIPs. It also provides invaluable clarity to the broader Ethereum ecosystem – application developers, wallet providers, and infrastructure operators – allowing them to anticipate changes and plan their integrations accordingly. The decision to decline certain EIPs, even those with merit, is framed not as a rejection of the idea itself, but as a strategic choice to maintain a manageable scope for Hegotá, preventing overload and ensuring successful delivery of the most impactful changes. This disciplined approach is crucial for navigating Ethereum’s ambitious roadmap, which includes future phases like "The Purge" (history expiry), "The Verge" (statelessness), and "The Splurge" (ZK-EVMs).
Community Engagement and Transparency: A Call for Feedback
Transparency and community feedback remain paramount in Ethereum’s decentralized governance model. The EF Protocol cluster has explicitly invited challenge and pushback on the published tier list. To facilitate this, a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session is scheduled on r/ethereum for September 16 at 2pm UTC. This event offers a direct channel for developers, researchers, and community members to engage with the protocol cluster, question specific grades, and advocate for proposals. Champions and supporters of non-A-tier or declined EIPs are particularly encouraged to participate and submit questions in advance via a provided form. This open dialogue is vital for refining the protocol’s direction and ensuring that decisions are well-informed and reflective of the broader ecosystem’s needs.
As the Ethereum network continues its rapid evolution, driven by a dedicated community and rigorous development, the Hegotá tier list stands as a testament to a maturing, collaborative, and strategically-minded approach to building the future of decentralized technology. Success, as the cluster itself notes, is measured not only by what is shipped but also by the judicious decisions to defer or decline, ensuring a sustainable and robust path forward.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on Sep. 8, 2026, to reflect a revision in the tier list notes for EIP-7716, adding further clarification on the need for additional research and community discussion.
