- The Ethereum Foundation has designated two EIPs as “must ship” for the upcoming Hegotá network upgrade: EIP-7805 (FOCIL) and EIP-7906 (Frame Transactions).
- FOCIL (Fee-On-Chain-Inclusion-List) aims to strengthen censorship resistance by allowing validators to enforce transaction inclusion without relying on a single builder.
- Frame Transactions introduce a new transaction type designed to improve execution-layer efficiency and reduce overhead for complex multi-party operations.
- Developers are currently evaluating dozens of additional EIPs for potential inclusion in Hegotá, with a final scope decision expected in the coming months.
- The Hegotá upgrade follows the Fusaka hard fork and is part of Ethereum’s broader roadmap toward statelessness and improved validator decentralization.
Core Scope Narrowed for Hegotá
The Ethereum Foundation has formally identified two Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) as mandatory components for the forthcoming Hegotá network upgrade, signaling a deliberate narrowing of scope after months of debate among core developers. According to the foundation’s latest protocol call notes, EIP-7805, known as FOCIL (Fee-On-Chain-Inclusion-List), and EIP-7906, which introduces Frame Transactions, have been elevated to “must ship” status. This designation means these two proposals form the non-negotiable technical foundation of Hegotá, while all other candidate EIPs remain optional and subject to further review.
The decision reflects a strategic pivot by Ethereum’s leadership to prioritize execution-layer robustness over breadth. During the September 3, 2026, All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) call, consensus emerged that FOCIL and Frame Transactions address critical vulnerabilities in the current block production pipeline. Developers emphasized that shipping these two upgrades together reduces risk of interaction bugs, as both touch adjacent parts of the transaction lifecycle. The Hegotá upgrade is currently targeted for mainnet deployment in the first half of 2027, though no fixed date has been committed.
FOCIL: Censorship Resistance at the Base Layer
EIP-7805, or FOCIL, is designed to create a lightweight inclusion list mechanism that operates alongside proposer-builder separation (PBS). Under the current architecture, a single block builder can theoretically exclude transactions, raising censorship concerns. FOCIL empowers validators to submit a short list of transactions they want included in a block, which the selected builder must then honor or risk having the block rejected. This mechanism does not require validators to construct full blocks, preserving efficiency while ensuring that no single actor can unilaterally suppress transactions.
The proposal has been in development since late 2025 and has undergone significant revision based on feedback from staking pools and MEV researchers. A key design change adopted in mid-2026 reduced the inclusion list size from 16 to 8 transactions per validator slot, lowering bandwidth overhead while maintaining strong anti-censorship guarantees. The Ethereum Foundation’s research team has published simulations showing that FOCIL can reduce censorship rates to below 1% even in adversarial conditions, compared to an estimated 5-10% under current PBS-only designs.
Frame Transactions: Efficiency for Complex Operations
EIP-7906 introduces a new transaction envelope called “Frame Transactions,” which bundles multiple internal operations into a single atomic unit. Unlike standard transactions that execute sequentially, Frame Transactions allow for parallelizable sub-executions within one call frame, reducing gas costs for complex DeFi interactions and cross-contract calls. The EIP was originally proposed by the Nethermind team in early 2026 and has since gained support from Geth and Besu client maintainers.
Benchmark tests conducted during the August 2026 devnet phase showed that Frame Transactions reduce gas consumption by approximately 18-22% for multi-hop swaps and by 30% for account abstraction workflows. The mechanism also simplifies error handling, as a failure in any sub-operation reverts the entire frame, preventing partial state updates. This design is expected to benefit layer-2 rollups that settle batches to Ethereum, as they can now encode settlement proofs more compactly. However, the EIP requires changes to the EVM’s gas metering logic, which has been a point of contention among auditors concerned about backward compatibility.
Remaining Candidates and Timeline
Beyond the two mandatory EIPs, developers are still considering roughly 30 other proposals for Hegotá, including EIP-7783 (stateless epoch transitions) and EIP-7912 (blob fee market reform). The final inclusion list is expected to be frozen at the next ACDE meeting scheduled for late September 2026. Notably, the foundation has indicated that any EIP not ready for client implementation by November 2026 will be deferred to the subsequent upgrade, currently nicknamed “Glamsk.” This disciplined approach mirrors the successful Fusaka upgrade process, which shipped with a tightly scoped set of changes in June 2026.
Market reaction to the announcement has been muted but positive, with ETH trading near $3,450 as of September 8, 2026, up 1.2% over the past 24 hours. Analysts view the clarity on Hegotá’s core scope as a bullish signal for developer productivity, though they caution that the real test will come during public testnet deployment, expected in Q1 2027. The Ethereum Foundation has committed to publishing a detailed security review of both EIPs before the upgrade moves to final testing phases.
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